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LIBRARY    OF    THE    THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,     N.    J. 
PRESENTED  BY 

MRS.    ALEXANDER   PROUDFIT 


BX  7260 

.B3  A6 

Abbott, 

Lyman, 

1835- 

•1922. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher: 

a  sketc 

of  his 

career 

with 

Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2009  witii  funding  from 

Princeton  Tlieological  Seniinary  Library 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/lienrywardbeecliOOabbo 


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HENRY  WARD  BEECHER: 


A  SKETCH  OF 

HIS    CAREER: 

WITH 

ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER  AS  A  PREACHER,  LECTURER, 

ORATOR   AND   JOURNALIST,    AND  INCIDENTS 

AND  REMINISCENCES  OF  HIS  LIFE. 

BY 

LYMAN  ABBOTT,  D.D., 

ASSISTED    BY 

KEY.  S.  B.  HALLIDAY. 


CHARACTERIZATIONS  AND  PERSONAL  REMINISCENCES,  CONTRIBUTED  BY 
THIRTY-NINE    EMINENT  WRITERS. 


MR.  BEECHER' S  LIFE  AS  SKETCHED  BY  HIMSELF  SHORTLY  BEFORE 
HIS  BE  A  TH. 


1887. 

HARTFORD,   CONN.: 

AMERICAN  PUBLISHING  COMPANY. 


Enterea,  accordinf!;  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  tlie years  1883  and  188T, 

By  FUNK  &  WAGNALLS, 

In  the  Oiflce  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


PREFACE. 


The  almost  universal  expressions  of  esteem,  love, 
and  affection  which  the  death  of  Mr,  Beecher  has  called 
forth  from  every  part  of  the  country,  every  class  in 
society,  and  every  religious  denomination,  indicate 
how  wide  and  deep  a  hold  he  had  upon  the  American 
people. 

It  cannot  be  questioned  that  no  other  man  has 
exerted  so  wide  and  profound  an  influence  on  the  pro- 
gress of  thought — moral,  political  and  religious— in 
this  country  for  the  past  fifty  years,  as  has  Mr. 
Beecher.  It  may  indeed  be  claimed  that  other  re- 
formers have  done  more  to  change  the  political 
constitution  from  a  pseudo-democracy  governed  by 
a  slavocracy  to  a  genuine  democracy  governed  by 
its  free  indr  strial  classes  ;  that  other  teachers 
have  done  more  to  promote  that  political  enthu- 
siasm out  of  which  parties  are  born  and  by  which 
they  must  be  inspired — or  die  ;  that  other  theo- 
logical thinkers  have  exerted  a  more  permanent  influ- 
ence on  the  religious  thought  of  the  jDulpit,  the  press, 
and  the  age  ;  but  it  will  hardly  be  claimed  that  any 
one  man  has  done  so  much"  as  he  in  each  one  of  these 
three  departments.  The  contemporary  of  Garrison 
and  PhiUips,  Chase  and  Seward,  Park  and  Hodge, 
they  have  wrought  each  only  in  his  own  field,  while 
Mr.  Beecher  has  jDloaghed  and  sowed  and  lived  to  see 


yi  PREFACE. 

harvesting  in  every  field.  The  life  of  such  a  man  is 
the  life  of  his  epoch.  The  story  of  a  successful  gen- 
eral is  the  story  of  his  successful  campaigns. 

It  is  not  such  a  story  I  have  here  attempted  to  write. 
The  story  of  Mr.  Beecher  s  life  is  indeed  sketched  in 
outline,  but  it  is  only  in  outline.  This  volume  may  be 
justly  called  a  Portrait ;  it  is  not  a  record  of  the  achieve- 
ments, it  is  a  personal  introduction  to  the  man.  It  is 
nearly  thirty  years  since  I  first  became  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Beecher :  he  then  in  the  full  power  of  his 
prime,  I  a  boy  just  out  of  college.  During  those 
thirty  years  our  acquaintance  has  grown  continuously 
more  intimate.  That  intimacy  has  only  served  to  in- 
crease my  respect  and  deepen  my  affection.  My  close 
association  with  him  during  five  years  of  editorial  co- 
labor  was  unmarred  by  a  single  collision,  and  has 
left  behind  not  the  memory  of  a  single  jar.  The  more 
I  have  known  him  the  more  I  have  seen  to  admire,  to 
honor,  to  love.  I  never  met  him  without  receiving 
from  his  presence  and  his  words  some  inspiration — in- 
tellectual, or  spiritual,  or  both.  My  object  in  this 
book — which  has  far  outgrown  the  proportions  of  its 
original  design — has  been  to  bring  Mr.  Beecher  into 
more  intimate  relations  with  the  thousands  who  have 
known  him  only  as  a  voice  in  the  air  ;  to  give  to  the 
many  something  of  that  personal  acquaintance  which 
has  been  only  the  peculiar  privilege  of  the  few  ;  and 
especially  to  afford  the  young  men  of  the  country  a 
better  understanding  of  his  character  than  has  been 
or  could  be  afforded  by  the  always  partial  and  often 
distorted  views  afforded  by  the  current  publications 
of  him  in  the  daily  press. 


PREFACE.  VU 

For  it  is  the  compensating  disadvantage  of  genius  to 
be  never  compreliended  by  its  contemporaries  ;  and 
Mr.  Beecher  is  peculiarly  liable  to  misinterpretation. 
His  opalescent  nature,  his  kaleidoscopic  moods,  his 
profound  intellectual  and  spiritual  insight,  his  impa- 
tience of  the  mere  mechanics  and  formularies  of  relig- 
ion, which  are  of  larger  imi^ortance  than  he  realizes, 
because  the  weak  need  props  which  the  strong  do  not 
need,  his  intensely  emotional  nature,  and  his  utter 
disregard  of  his  own  reputation,  make  him  often  an 
enigma  to  his  friends,  and  always  an  easy  subject  for 
the  misrei^resentations  of  envy,  malice,  and  uncharita- 
bleness.  That  this  volume  will  clear  away  all  misun- 
derstandings I  do  not  imagine  ;  still  less  that  it  will 
even  mitigate  misrepresentations.  But  I  trust  it  may 
serve  a  useful  purpose  in  making  known  the  man  to 
those  who  have  loiown  only  the  orator  and  the  author. 

It  remains  to  give  in  a  few  sentences  the  history  of 
the  origin  and  j)reparation  of  this  book,  which  is  only 
in  a  qualified  sense  my  work,  though  for  its  spirit  and 
accuracy  I  am  responsible. 

Some  years  ago  the  Rev.  S.  B.  Halliday,  the 
Pastoral  Helper  of  Plymouth  Church,  began  to  col- 
lect material  respecting  Mr.  Beecher.  The  paj)ers 
in  Part  II.  were  all  obtained  by  him.  These  papers, 
with  much  other  material,  he  brought  to  me  some 
year  and  a  half  ago,  and  requested  my  aid  in  arrang- 
ing, revising,  and  editing  them.  In  looking  over 
them  I  found  abundant  material  for  a  book  of  the 
purjDose  and  scope  outlined  above,  and  so,  with  some 
misgivings  on  account  of  other  engagements,  but  with 
hearty  interest  on  account  of  personal  attachment  to 


viii  PREFACE. 

Mr.  Beeclier,  the  work  was  undertaken.  The  incep- 
tion of  this  book  is  Mr,  Halliday's  ;  and  his  has  been 
the  large  labor,  little  appreciated  by  the  public  but 
readily  appreciated  by  all  literary  workers,  involved 
in  the  voluminous  correspondence  which  was  necessary 
to  collect  the  material.  In  the  arrangement,  revision, 
collation,  correction,  and  general  editorial  work  I 
have  been  assisted  by  Mr.  S.  A.  Chapin,  Jr.,  without 
whose  co-operation  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
me  to  cOmj^lete  the  work.  He  also  has  largely  done 
the  work  of  seeing  it  through  the  i^ress.  The  gentle- 
men whose  pax)ers  constitute  Part  II.  and  the  many 
friends  who  have  sent  incidents  will  jDlease  to  accept 
this  general  acknowledgment  of  their  kindness  in  lieu 
of  more  direct  and  formal  acknowledgments. 

L.  A. 


INDEX. 


PART    I. 

HENRY   WARD    BEECHER. 

Page 

I.  Childhood  and  Youth 13 

II.  Early  Ministry 39 

III,  Mr.  Beecher  as  a  Preacher 69 

IV.  Methods  of  Study 75 

V.  Mr.  Beecher's  Theology 91 

VI.  Mr.  Beecher  as  a  Journalist 118 

VII.  Mr.  Beecher  as  a  Lecturer  and  Orator 134 

VIII.  Mr.  Beecher  in  England  during  the  Civil  War.  . . .  161 

IX.  Personal  Traits  and  Incidents 186 

X.  Reminiscences  by  Rev.  S.  B.  Halliday  : 

Mr.  Beecher  in  Brooklyn 230 

Centennial  Year 226 

Magnanimity 228 

What  would  you  have  me  to  do  ? 233 

The  Dying  Calif ornian 234 

Last  Prayer-Meeting  of  the  Year 238 

Border  Ruffian 242 

A  Sensible  Woman 243 

Women  Speaking  in  Meeting 244 

The  Methodist  Sister 245 

Applicants  for  Help 246 

Universal  Adaptation 251 

The  Woman  who  Lost  her  Baby 257 

XI.  Plymouth  Church 261 


X  INDEX. 

PART    II. 

ANALYSES    OF    HIS    POWER,     AND    REMINISCENCES  BY 
CONTEMPORARIES. 

[Written  Specially  for  this  Work.] 

Pagb 

I.  By  Rev.  Thomas  Armitage,  D.D 285 

II.  By  Rev.  Joseph  Parker,  D.D.,  England 297 

III.  By  Rev.  Charles  E.  Robinson,  D.D 303 

IV.  By  Hon.  Amos  C.  Barstow 308 

V.  By  Rev.  Henry  Highland  Garnett,  D.D 314 

VI.  By  Rev.  Samuel  H.  Virgin,  D.D 318 

VII.  By  Rev.  Edward  P.  Ingersoll,  D.D 321 

VIII.  By  Rev.  J.  O.  Peck,  D.D 325 

IX.  By  Peter  MacLeod,  Scotland 334 

X.  By  Rev.  Charles  Hall  Everest,  D.D 340 

XI.  By  Rev.  W.  Burnet  Wright 344 

XII.  By  Rev.  E.  P.  Putnam,  D.D 349 

XIII.  By  Rev.  A.  H.  Bradford 352 

XIV.  By  Rev.  Albert  H.  Heath 355 

XV.  By  Rev.  Leonard  Bacon,  D.D.,  LL.D 360 

XVI.  By  Hon.  Frederick  Douglass 363 

XVIL  By  Rev.  Francis  N.  Zabriskie,  D.D 363 

XVIIL  By  Rev.  C.  K  Sims,  D.D.-. 364 

XIX.  By  J.  L.  Cunningham,  Scotland 367 

XX.  By  Rev.  Frank  Russell 369 

XXI.  By  Rev.  Father  Keegan,  Vicar-General 385 

XXII.  By  Jesse  Seligman 385 

XXm.  By  Rev.  T.  J.  Conant.  D.D 387 

XXIV.  By  Rev.  Prof.  G.  B.  Willcox,  D.D 388 

XXV.  By  Rabbi  Lilienthal,  D.D 390 

XXVI.  By  Rev.  George  Douglass,  LL.D.,  Canada...,, 393 

XXVII.  By  Gen.  Clinton  B.  Fisk 394 


INDEX.  xi 

Page 

XXVIII.  By  John  G.  Whittier 395 

XXIX.  By  Rev.  Eugene  Bersier,  D.D.,  France 396 

Extract  from  Sermon  by  Rev.  David  Swing,  D.D 396 

Article  by  Rev.  Atticub  G.  Haygood,  D.D 400 

[From  Magazines  and  other  Articles.] 

I. .  By  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  in  Atlantic  Monthly 404 

II.  By  Rev.  H.  R.  Havteis,  in  Contemporary  Review 411 

III.  By  Rev.  William  M.  Taylor,  D.D.,  va.  Scottish  Review . .  414 

IV.  By  Prof.  Noah  Porter,  D.D.,  in  Hearth  and  Home 428 

V.  By  Rev.  Edward  Eggleston,  in  Hearth  and  Home 434 

VI.  By  Rev.  Prof.  James  M.  Hoppin,  in  the  New  Englander.  438 

VII.  By  Rev.  A.  McElroy  Wylie,  in  Scribner's  Monthly 447 

VIII.  By  Rev.  R.  S.  Storrs,  D.D.,  Silver  Wedding  Address..  457 


PART    III. 

CHARA  CTERISTW     UTTERANCES. 

Theological.— St  .tement  of  Belief 479 

Spiritual. — How  to  Become  a  Christian ^  508 

Political. — Speech  in  London 523 

Mr.  Beecher's  Farewell  Address 646 

Descriptive.— The  Alps 661 

Philosophical. — Evolution  and  Revolution 566 

Agricultural  .  — Political  Economy  of  the  Apple 574 

Our  Creed 585 

Humorous. — Modern  Conveniences  and  First-Class  Houses 587 


CLOSING  YEARS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
Last  Visit  to  Europe — Seventieth  Birthday,  etc 597 


xil  INDEX. 

CHAPTER  II.  FAGE 

/  His  Life  as  Sketched  by  Himself — Last  Discourse 604 

CHAPTER  III 
Last  Hours — Death— Funeral  Services 628 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Universal  Tribute  of  Respect  to  his  Memory 646 


APPENDIX. 

Scope  ov  Mk.  Beecher's  Preaching 663 

Posters  Placarded  in  Liverpool,  etc 665 

Plymouth  Church  Statistics 668 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Pagh 
HENRY  WARD  BEECHER Frontispiece 

THE     HOUSE    AT    LITCHFIELD,     CONN.,     IN    WHICH 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  WAS  BORN 17 

SCHOOL-HOUSE  IN  WHITINSVILLE,  MASS,  IN  WHICH 

MR.  BEECHER  TAUGHT  IN  1831  AND  1833 51 

CHURCH  IN  INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WHICH  MR.  BEECHER 

PREACHED 51 

A  FAMILY  OF  CLERGYMEN 85 

MR.  BEECHER  AT  DIFFERENT  AGES 119 

THE    CHURCH    IN    LAWRENCEBURG    IN   WHICH   MR. 

BEECHER  FIRST  PREACHED 153 

MR  BEECHER'S  RESIDENCES  IN  INDIANAPOLIS 187 

His  Four-room  House. 

The  Residence  he  Built,  painting  it  himself. 

PLYMOUTH  CHURCH 221 

PLYMOUTH  CHURCH  AUDIENCE 255 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 290 

PLYMOUTH  CHURCH  SUNDAY-SCHOOL 333 

ACROSS  THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS 357 

"EYES  AND  EARS." 357 

MR.  BEECHER'S  FAMILY 891 

NEW  RESIDENCE  ON  THE  PEEKSKILL  FARM 425 

MR.  BEECHER'S  WORKSHOP 459 

VIEWS  AT  PEEKSKILL  FARM 509 

A  MAN  OF  MANY  MOODS 559 

MR.     BEECHER    LYING     IN     STATE     IN     PLYMOUTH 

CHURCH 643 


Part  I. 


HENRY  WARD    BEECHER. 


HENRY   WARD    BEECHER 


CHAPTER  I. 

BIOGRAPHICAL.      I. 


Maisty  of  the  cliaracteristics  of  a  life  are  inherited. 
Hence  to  know  the  intermingling  of  different  bloods, 
the  union  of  varying  characteristics,  the  assimilation 
of  inherited  family  traits  in  one  organization,  is  as 
necessary  in  a  study  of  a  man' s  character  as  to  know 
something  of  the  thread  and  shuttle  and  the  weaving 
in  the  estimation  of  a  rich  fabric. 

The  tone  of  the  home  atmosphere,  the  lights  and 
shadows  of  early  life,  the  quality  of  the  parental  gov- 
ernment are  all  influences  of  such  permanent  effect  on 
the  after  life,  that  familiarity  with  them  in  the  contem- 
plation of  a  character  is  indispensable.  Pre-eminently 
is  this  true  when  the  early  training  produces  such  last- 
ing impressions  as  in  the  present  instance,  necessitating 
more  than  the  simple  statement  that  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  was  born  in  Litchfield,  Connecticut,  June  24th, 
1813,  the  eighth  child  of  Lyman  and  Roxana  Foote 
Beecher.     The  convergence  of  two  long  lines  of  sturdy 


14  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

!N'ew  England  ancestry  is  represented  by  the  union  of 
these  names,  dating  back  on  either  side  to  the  settle- 
ment of  New  Haven  in  1638,  when  a  widow,  Hannah 
Beecher,  and  Andrew  Ward,  came  over  from  England 
vdth  Davenport,  Lyman  Beecher  and  Roxana  Foote, 
the  descendants  of  these  two  pioneers,  were  married 
September  19th,  1799,  and  moved  to  East  Hampton, 
L.  I.,  and  subsequently  to  Litchfield,  Connecticut, 
where,  as  already  stated,  Henry  Ward  was  born.  His 
father  at  this  time  was  ministering  to  a  congregation  at 
a  salary  of  eight  hundred  dollars  a  year,  out  of  which 
a  family,  soon  increased  to  ten  children,  must  be  main- 
tained and  educated.  The  importance  which  is  attached 
to  the  training  of  children  now,  the  rich  provision  for 
their  care,  education,  and  enjoyment,  is  a  deviation 
from  old  methods  of  whicU  the  parents  of  iifty  years 
ago  could  have  had  no  conception.  The  child-world  of 
Henry  Ward  was  barren  of  all  the  beauty  which  graces 
that  of  modern  youth.  Mrs.  Stowe  says,  in  writing  of 
the  training  of  children  at  this  period,  "  The  commu- 
nity did  not  recognize  them.  There  was  no  child' s  litera- 
ture ;  there  were  no  children's  books.  The  Sunday- 
school  was  yet  an  experiment,  in  a  fluctuating,  uncer- 
tain state  of  trial.  There  were  no  children's  days  of 
presents  or  fetes,  no  Christmas  or  New  Year's  festivals. 
The  annual  thanksgiving  was  only  associated  with  one 
day's  unlimited  range  of  pies  of  every  sort — too  much 
for  one  day  and  too  soon  things  of  the  past.  The  child- 
"iiood  of  Henry  Ward  was  unmarked  by  the  possession 
of  a  single  child's  toy  as  a  gift  from  any  older  person, 
or  a  single  fete.  Very  early,  too,  strict  duties  devolved 
upon  him  ;  a  daily  portion  of  the  work  of  the  estab- 


BOYHOOD.  15 

lishment,  tlie  care  of  the  domestic  animals,  the  cutting 
and  piling  of  wood,  or  tasks  in  the  garden,  strengthened 
his  muscles  and  gave  vigor  and  tone  to  his  nerves. 
From  his  father  and  mother  he  inherited  a  perfectly 
solid,  healthy  organization  of  brain,  muscle,  and  nerves  ; 
and  the  uncaressing,  let-alone  system  under  which  he 
was  brought  up,  gave  him  early  habits  of  vigor  and^ 
reliance."  Even  this  cheerless  and  somewhat  hard 
experience  had  its  advantage,  and  the  entire  freedom 
of  the  boy's  life  and  thoughts  led  him  into  congenial 
fields  of  inquiry  that  methodical  training  might  have 
left  unsearched.  The  lack  of  the  ordinary  equipments 
of  childhood,  the  playthings,  the  story  books,  and 
holidays,  led  him  to  find  amusement  where  he  could, 
and  thus  brought  him  into  frequent  contact  with  Nature 
and  her  children,  and  from  these  sources  he  drew  truer 
lessons  than  might  perhaps  be  found  in  the  whole  range 
of  child' s  literature.     Of  this  period  he  himself  says  : 

"  I  think  I  was  about  as  well  brought  up  as  most 
children,  because  I  was  let  alone.  My  father  was  so 
busy,  and  my  mother  had  so  many  other  children  to 
look  after,  that,  except  here  and  there,  I  hardly  came 
under  the  parental  hand  at  all.  I  was  brought  up  in  a 
New  England  village,  and  I  kn  bw  where  the  sweet-flag 
was,  where  the  hickory  trees  were,  where  the  chestnut 
trees  were,  where  the  sassafras  trees  were,  wheie  the 
squirrels  were,  where  all  those  things  were  that  boys 
enterprise  after  ;  therefore,  I  had  a  world  of  things  to 
do  ;  and  so  I  did  not  come  much  in  contact  with  family 
government." 

In  a  city,  such  unrestricted  freedom  of  action  would 
have  been  impossible  without  impairing  integrity  and 


16  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

purity  of  cliaracter,  but  the  moral  atmospliere  of  Litch- 
field, was  as  untainted  and  invigorating  as  the  air  of 
its  surrounding  mountains,  and  was  fraught  with  no 
contaminating  influences. 

He  was  meiTy,  bright,  and  affectionate  as  a  child,  and 
it  is  interesting  to  read  from  the  family  letters  of  this 
period  bits  of  domestic  history  that  give  strong  impres- 
sions of  the  child's  character.  A  letter  from  his 
mother,  written  after  a  journey,  says  :  "I  arrived  at 
sunset,  and  found  all  well,  and  the  boy  (Henry  Ward) 
in  merry  trim,  glad  at  heart  to  be  safe  on  terra  firma 
after  all  his  jolts  and  tossings."  In  another,  this 
pleasant  picture  of  home  life  is  given:  "I  write  sit- 
ting upon  my  feet,  with  my  paper  on  the  seat  of  a 
chair,  while  Henry  is  hanging  round  my  neck  and 
climbing  on  my  back,  and  Harriet  is  begging  me  to 
please  make  her  a  baby."  Miss  Catherine  Beecher,  in 
writing  of  the  children  to  an  aunt,  says  :  "Henry  is 
a  very  good  boy,  and  we  think  him  a  remarkably  in- 
teresting child,  and  he  grows  dearer  to  us  every  day. 
He  is  very  affectionate  and  seems  to  love  his  father 
with  all  his  heart.  His  constant  prattle  is  a  great 
amusement  to  us  all.  He  t)ften  speaks  of  his  sister 
Harriet,  and  wishes  spring  to  come,  so  that  she  might 
come  home  and  go  to  school  with  him." 

Mrs.  Beecher,  the  second  wife,  soon  after  arriving  in 
Litchfield,  in  1817,  writes  home  of  the  family :  "It 
seems  the  highest  happiness  of  the  children  (the 
larger  ones  especially)  to  have  a  reading  circle.  They 
have  all,  I  think,  fine  capacities,  and  good  taste  for 
learning.  Edward  probably  will  be  a  great  scholar. 
Catherine  is  a  fine-looking  girl,  and  in  her  mind  I  find 


DR.  LYMAN  BEECHER.  19 

all  that  I  expected.  Mary  will  make  a  fine  woman,  I 
think  ;  will  be  rather  handsome,  than  otherwise.  The 
four  youngest  are  very  pretty.  George  comes  next  to 
Mary.  Harriet  and  Henry  come  next,  and  they  are 
always  hand-in-hand.  They  are  as  lovely  children  as 
I  ever  saw,  amiable,  affectionate,  and  very  bright." 
Two  years  later  she  writes  again  :  "  George  and  Har- 
riet go  to  school  to  Mr.  Brace  and  Miss  Pierce  ;  Henry 
and  Charles  to  Miss  Osborne  at  the  new  school-house. 
Charles  learns  quite  fast,  and  will  overtake  Henry, 
who  has  no  great  love  for  his  books." 

Dr.  Beecher  was  actively  engaged  at  this  time  in 
pastoral  duties,  and  in  religious  work  extending  over 
a  wide  range  of  influence,  while  the  high  literary  and 
intellectual  character  of  Litchfield  society,  and  pre- 
eminently of  Dr.  Beecher's  intimate  friends,  opened 
up  attractive  and  congenial  fields  of  discussion  and  in- 
vestigation, which  with  the  prosperous  and  happy  con- 
dition of  the  home-circle,  rendered  these  years  the 
most  joyous  and  least  shadowed  with  care,  of  all  his 
life.  His  lack  of  method  and  system  was  great,  and  this 
conduced  to  a, freedom  and  sociality  of  life  which 
knew  no  rules,  and  within  certain  prescribed  moral 
limits,  allowed  the  children  to  do  about  as  they  chose. 
Simple  purity  in  daUy  life,  parental  conversation,  and 
example  were  the  guides  by  which  the  children  were 
imbued  with  the  moral  qualities  of  conscience,  of  self- 
respect,  and  of  truth.  Of  his  father  Mr.  Beecher  says 
in  one  of  his  sermons  : 

"I  never  saw  my  father  do  a  thing  that  had  du- 
plicity in  it  in  my  life.  I  recollect  that,  when  a  child, 
I  mistook  his  appearance  when  talking  with  persons 


20  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

that  came  to  see  Mm  as  inconsistent  with  his  after  state 
of  feeling  when  they  had  gone  away.  I  did  not  under- 
stand simple  prudence  ;  and  it  looked  as  though  father 
was  one  thing  before  their  face  and  another  thing  be- 
hind their  back.  It  distressed  me  exceedingly.  Ex- 
cept in  that  one  instance,  a  cloud  or  a  shadow  never 
passed  over  my  mind  with  regard  to  my  father's  in- 
tegrity. I  believed  it  impossible  for  him  to  think  an 
untruth,  and  still  less  possible  for  him  to  tell  one.  And* 
my  mother  was  the  law  of  purity  and  the  law  of  honor. 
Therefore,  I  did  not  need  much  teaching  on  these  sub- 
jects." 

Henry  Ward's  own  mother  died  when  he  was  but 
three  years  old.  She  was  gentle,  loving,  and  tender, 
with  M'idest  range  of  sympathy,  and  of  a  restful,  pla- 
cid temperament,  the  peace  and  serenity  of  which  re- 
mained undisturbed  through  all  earthly  trials.  Her 
death  deprived  her  husband  of  his  strongest  counsellor 
and  support,  and  he  is  said  to  have  declared  that  his 
first  sensation  was  a  sort  of  terror,  like  that  of  a  child 
suddenly  thrust  out  alone  in  the  dark.  Mrs.  Stowe 
writes  of  her  recollections  of  this  time :  "Then  came 
the  funeral.  Henry  was  too  little  to  go.  I  remember 
his  golden  curls  and  little  black  frock,  as  he  frolicked 
like  a  kitten  in  the  sun,  in  ignorant  joy.' '  And  again  : 
"They  told  us  at  one  time,  that  she  had  been  laid  in 
the  ground,  at  another  that  she  had  gone  to  heaven ; 
whereupon  Henry  putting  the  two  things  together, 
resolved  to  dig  through  the  ground  and  go  to  heaven 
to  find  her;  for,  being  discovered  under  sister  Cath- 
arine's-window  one  morning,  digging  with  great  zeal 
and  earnestness,  she  called  to  him  to  know  what  he 


THE  FIRST  MOTHER.  21 

was  doing,  and,  lifting  his  curly  head  with  great  sim- 
plicity, he  answered,  'Why,  I'm  going  to  heaven  to 
find  ma.'  " 

The  trust  and  imagination  of  childhood  have  grown 
with  years  into  the  man's  strong  devotion  to  her 
memory,  and  at  times  reveal  themselves  in  such  pas- 
sages in  his  sermons  as  the  following : 

"And,  on  the  other  hand,  who  can  measure  the 
wealth  of  blessing  that  there  is  in  father  and  mother  to 
children  ?  Do  you  know  why  so  often  I  speak  what 
must  seem  to  some  of  you  rhapsody  of  woman  ?  It 
is  because  I  had  a  mother  ;  and  if  I  were  to  live  a  thou- 
sand years  I  could  not  express  what  seems  to  me  to  be 
the  least  that  I  owe  to  the  fact  that  I  had  a  mother. 
Three  years  old  was  I,  when,  singing,  she  left  me,  and 
sung  on  to  heaven,  where  she  sings  evermore.  I  have 
only  such  a  remembrance  of  her  as  you  have  of  the 
clouds  of  ten  years  ago — faint,  evanescent ;  and  yet 
caught  by  imagination,  and  fed  by  that  which  I  have 
heard  of  her,  and  by  what  my  father's  thought  and 
feeling  of  her  were,  it  has  come  to  be  so  much  to  me 
that  no  devout  Catholic  ever  saw  so  much  in  the  Virgin 
Mary  as  I  have  seen  in  my  mother,  who  has  been  a 
presence  to  me  ever  since  I  can  remember.  And  I  can 
never  say  enough  for  woman  for  my  mother's  sake, 
for  my  sisters'  sake,  for  the  sake  of  them  that  have 
gathered  in  the  days  of  my  infancy  around  about  me, 
in  return  for  what  they  have  interpreted  to  me  of  the 
beauty  of  holiness,  of  the  fulness  of  love,  and  of  the 
heavenliness  of  those  elements  from  which  we  are  to 
•  interpret  heaven  itself.  No  child  of  Christian  parents 
can  ever  measure  the  weight  of  the  gratitude  which  he 


22  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

owes  to  the  father  and  the  mother  that  not  only  took 
care  of  him,  but  taught  him  what  he  meant  when  he 
said,  'Our  Father  who  art  in  heaven.'  How  power- 
ful should  be  this  reflex-influence,  then,  of  the  truth 
symbolized,  hidden,  in  this  opening  petition  of  the 
Lord's  j)rayer." 

Or  again : 

' '  Oh,  that  it  could  have  been  so  in  days  past !  My 
mother  died  when  I  was  but  a  small  child,  and  I  do  not 
remember  to  have  ever  seen  her  face.  And  as  there 
was  no  pencil  that  could  afford  to  limn  her,  I  have 
never  seen  a  likeness  of  her.  Would  to  God  that  I 
could  see  some  picture  of  my  mother.  No  picture  that 
hangs  on  prince' s  wall,  or  in  gallery,  would  I  not  give, 
if  I  might  choose,  for  a  faithful  portrait  of  my 
mother.  Give  me  that  above  all  other  pictures  under 
God's  canopy." 

At  the  end  of  a  year.  Dr.  Beecher  brought  home  a 
second  wife  to  assume  the  duties  of  the  household  and 
the  care  of  the  children.  She  had  been  as  a  girl  a 
brilliant  belle  of  society,  the  possessor  of  great  per- 
sonal beauty,  a  cultivated  and  intellectual  mind, 
polished  manners,  and  rich  in  all  social  acquirements. 
With  her  religious  awakening  and  conversion  came  in- 
creased moral  culture  and  force,  which,  from  her 
natural  propensity  to  rectitude  and  propriety,  and 
from  her  unyielding  conscience  and  undeviating  pur- 
pose  to  do  right  herself,  and  have  others  do  right  also, 
assumed  the  character  of  a  religion,  solemn,  inflexible, 
rigorous,  and  sombre.  The  freedom  with  which  the 
children  had  been  familiar  had  not  instilled  in  them 
those  graces  and  refinements  which  were  to  her  natural 


THE  SECOND  MOTHER.  23 

and  habitual,  while  the  shortcomings  and  imperfec- 
tions which  arose  naturally  from  a  crude  and  vigorous 
childhood  were  to  her  sins  of  serious  magnitude.  It 
was  a  matter  of  consequence  with  her  to  point  out  and 
pray  with  them  over  their  faults,  and  the  religious 
influence  thus  brought  to  bear  upon  them  was  one 
that  concealed  the  sincerity  of  her  motive,  and  caused 
her  to  appear  in  the  children's  eyes  like  her  religion 
— dread,  calm,  and  exacting. 

No  words  so  well  as  Mr.  Beecher's  own  describe  the 
effect  on  him  of  his  mother's  religious  life  : 

"My  dear  mother — not  she  that  gcive  me  birth,  but 
she  that  brought  me  up ;  she  that  did  the  oflice-work 
of  a  mother,  if  ever  a  mother  did  ;  she  that,  according 
to  her  ability,  performed  to  the  uttermost  her  duties — 
was  a  woman  of  jDrofound  veneration,  rather  than  of  a 
warm  and  loving  nature.  Therefore,  her  prayer  was 
invariably  a  prayer  of  deep,  yearning  reverence.  I  re- 
member well  the  impression  which  it  made  on  me. 
There  was  a  mystic  influence  about  it.  A  sort  of  sym- 
pathetic hold  it  had  upon  me  ;  but  still,  I  always  felt, 
when  I  went  to  prayer,  as  though  I  was  going  into  a 
crypt,  where  the  sun  was  not  allowed  to  come  ;  and  I 
shrunk  from  it. 

"The  prayer  of  a  poor  man  on  my  father's  farm  was 
of  precisely  the  opposite  character,  and  impressed  me 
in  precisely  the  opposite  way.  He  used  alternatively 
to  pray  and  sing  and  laugh,  pray  and  sing  and  laugh, 
pray  and  sing  and  laugh.  He  had  a  little  room,  in  one 
corner  of  which  I  had  a  little  cot ;  and  I  used  to  lie  and 
see  him  attend  to  his  devotions.  They  were  a  regular 
thing.  Every  night  he  would  set  his  candle  at  the  head 


24  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

of  his  bed,  and  pray  and  sing  and  laugh.  And  I  bear 
record  that  his  praying  made  a  profound  impression 
upon  my  mind.  I  never  thought  whether  it  was  right 
or  wrong.  I  only  thought,  '  How  that  man  does  en- 
joy it !  What  enjoyment  there  must  be  in  such  prayer 
as  his  ! '  I  gained  from  that  man  more  of  an  idea  of 
the  desirableness  of  prayer,  than  I  ever  did  from  my 
father  or  mother.  My  father  was  never  an  ascetic  :  he 
had  no  sympathy  with  anything  of  a  monkish  ten- 
dency ;  and  yet,  this  poor  man,  more  than  he,  led  me 
to  see  that  there  should  be  real  overflowing  gladness 
and  thanksgiving  in  prayer.  I  learned  to  envy  Charles 
Smith,  although  I  was  a  hundred  degrees  higher  than 
he  in  society.  I  learned  to  feel  that  I  was  the  pau- 
per and  he  was  the  rich  man.  I  would  gladly  have 
changed  situations  with  him,  if  by  so  doing  I  could 
have  obtained  his  grace  and  his  hope  of  heaven.  I 
believe  he  rejoices  in  heaven  now." 

Under  the  training  of  such  a  nature  the  boy  grew  up^ 
at  once  inspired  and  repressed.  Religious  aspirations 
were  aroused,  but  from  lack  of  proper  care,  remained  in 
a  vague  state  or  else  disappeared.  Mr.  Beecher  relates 
his  personal  experience  at  this  time  as  follows  : 

' '  My  mother — she  who,  in  the  providence  of  God,, 
took  me  in  to  her  heart  when  my  own  mother  had  gone 
to  see  her  Father  in  heaven — she  who  came  after,  and 
was  most  faithful  to  the  charge  of  the  children  in  the 
household — she  often  took  me,  and  prayed  with  me,  and 
read  me  the  Word  of  God,  and  expounded  to  me  the 
way  of  duty,  and  did  all  that  seemed  to  her  possible,. 
I  know,  to  make  it  easy  for  me  to  become  a  religious; 
child ;  and  yet  there  have  been  times  when  I  think  it 


THE  FAMILY  GOVERNMENT.  25 

would  have  been  easier  for  me  to  lay  my  hand  on. 
a  block,  and  have  it  struck  off,  than  to  open  my 
thoughts  to  her,  when  I  longed  to  open  them  to  some 
one.  How  often  have  I  started  to  go  to  her,  and  tell  her 
my  feelings,  when  fear  has  caused  me  to  sheer  off,  and 
abandon  my  purpose.  My  mind  would  open  like  a 
rose-bud,  but,  alas,  fear  would  hold  back  the  blossom. 
How  many  of  my  early  religious  pointings  fell,  like  an 
over-drugged  rose-bud,  without  a  blossom." 

The  family  government  was  firm  and  decided  and 
was  administered  wholly  by  the  father,  the  mother's 
gentle  nature  not  fitting  her  to  enforce  laws.  The  ne- 
cessity of  discipline  was  not  frequent,  and  consisted  in 
impressing  upon  the  children' s  minds  the  need  of  will- 
ing, cheerful  and  quick  obedience.  In  instances  requir- 
ing special  emphasis,  the  lesson  was  conveyed  by  a  se- 
vere discipline,  always  feared  and  never  forgotten,  so 
that  a  mere  word  was  ever  after  that  effectual  in  secur- 
ing prompt  obedience,  uncomplaining  and  unquestion- 
ing. The  warmest  love  and  tenderest  sympathy,  how- 
ever, accompanied  this  firm  and  resolute  discipline,  and 
Mr.  Beecher  gives  an  amusing  account  of  his  own  ex- 
perience in  this  field  : 

"  My  father  used  to  make  me  believe  that  the  end  of 
the  rod  that  he  held  in  his  hand,  was  a  great  deal  more 
painful  to  him  than  the  end  which  I  felt  was  to  me. 
It  was  a  strange  mystery  to  me,  but  I  did  believe  it ; 
and  it  seemed  a  great  deal  worse  to  me  to  be  whipped 
on  that  account.  I  used  to  think  that  if  he  would  not 
talk  to  me,  but  would  whip  me,  I  could  stand  it  a 
great  deal  better.  So  I  could  have  stood  it  better,  and 
not  been  benefited.     For  a  child  is  not  whipped  till 


26  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

the  sensation  goes  to  the  heart,  and  touches  the  feeling. 
But  when  my  father  made  me  cry  by  talking  to  me, 
and  then  whipped  me,  and  then  made  me  cry  by  talk- 
ing to  me  again,  I  thought  it  was  too  bad.  And  yet  it 
was  the  right  way." 

Dr.  Beecher  would  come  from  his  study  and  books 
to  his  children,  with  whom  he  would  frolic  and  play 
queer  pranks  to  the  delight  of  both,  on  one  occasion 
swinging  his  little  daughter  Catherine  out  of  the  garret 
window  by  the  hands  to  test  her  courage,  and  again 
playfully  tipping  her  head  into  a  wash-tub  as  she  was 
running  by,  to  see  what  she  would  do. 

Occasions  for  discii)lining  Henry  Ward  were  rare, 
and  according  to  statements  of  his  own  in  recollection 
of  youthful  depravity  he  was  not  always  the  respon- 
sible person. 

"I  think,  however,  as  I  look  back  and  reflect  upon 
the  special  acts  which  brought  me  into  discipline,  that, 
though  perhaps  I  had  better  been  punished,  for  nine 
out  of  ten  of  them  I  was  not  really  to  blame.  I  do  not 
mean  that  there  was  not  a  certain  element  of  wrong  in 
them;  but,  considering  how  little  a  child  knows,  how 
weak  and  imperfect  his  reason  is,  what  is  the  force  of 
social  sympathy  upon  him,  and  how  liable  he  is  to 
mistakes  in  judgment,  I  do  not  think  much  blame 
could  have  been  attached  to  me. 

' '  I  recollect  being  banished  from  the  gallery  in  my 
father's  church,  to  sit  in  which  was  the  height  of  my 
ambition.  The  pews  were  square.  My  father's  was 
right  under  the  pulpit.  I  did  not,  I  believe,  more  than 
once  or  twice,  see  my  father  in  the  pulpit  till  I  was  of 
age,  and  had  gone  away  from  home,  because  we  had 


A  NEW  ENGLAND  CHURCH.  27 

that  minister's  pew,  in  which  I  was  always  compelled 
to  sit.  The  top  of  it  was  a  foot  higher  than  my  head, 
and  the  sides  were  as  straight  as  the  plummet  could 
make  them.  And,  sitting  there,  I  was  expected  to 
listen  to  the  sermon,  and  hear  every  word,  from  a  man 
I  could  not  see  !  And  when  I  put  my  hands  up,  some 
little  rollers  that  were  attached  to  the  pew  would  make 
a  noise.  It  was  the  only  agreeable  sound  that  I  recol- 
lect in  those  days  to  have  heard  in  the  sanctuary. 

"  I  remember  perfectly  well,  when  I  was  thus  brought 
up  in  that  inland  village,  and  in  that  inland  church, 
"with  a  kind  of  mechanical  government  extending  over 
me,  all  my  sensations,  all  my  little  thoughts,  all  the 
little  ranges  of  imagination  through  which  my  mind 
passed ;  and  judging  from  them,  from  my  own  chil- 
dren, and  from  the  children  of  my  parish,  I  cannot  but 
feel  that  of  the  faults  that  I  committed  the  greatest 
number  of  them  were  such  as  were  inevitable  to  my 
time  of  life,  and  to  the  development  that  had  taken 
place  in  my  moral  constitution,  and  that  they  did  not 
indicate  obliquity  or  depravity  at  all  in  the  worse  sense 
of  the  term,  but  simply  and  merely  inexi^erience.  Yet 
I  was  sometimes  punished  for  them. 

"  For  instance,  after  having  been  imprisoned  in  that 
pew  for  a  long  time,  I  desired  to  sit  with  the  singers. 
My  mother,  in  a  day  of  unexpected  grace,  gave  me 
permission,  with  many  and  multiplied  charges  of 
proper  conduct ;  and  I  went  into  the  gallery  with  all 
the  virtue  of  a  dozen  deacons,  determined  to  behave 
well,  and  to  earn  the  right  of  sitting  there.  Yes,  men 
and  angels  should  see  that  I  conducted  myself  becom- 
ingly.    But,  as  I  sat  there,  a  martyr  of  propriety,  on  a 


38  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

hard  seat,  one  of  the  roguish  boys  of  the  neighbor- 
hood gave  me  a  shove,  and  pushed  me  off  on  the  floor, 
and  tore  my  coat.  When  I  went  home  the  hole  in  my 
coat  was  espied,  and  my  mother  said,  '  Henry,  how 
came  that  hole  there  ? '  I  resolved  in  my  mind  what 
I  should  say.  I  wanted  to  tell  her  that  it  was  not  my 
fault ;  and  I  thought  I  used  the  words  that  would  con- 
vey that  idea,  when  I  said,  '  Oh,  mother,  it  was  done 
in  fun.'  I  did  not  know  what  the  meaning  of  fun 
was ;  but  I  found  out !  and  I  was  not  allowed  for 
years  afterward  to  go  into  that  gallery  where  in  fun 
I  had  torn  my  coat,  though  there  was  not  a  person  in 
the  church  that  put  forth  half  the  effort  that  I  did  to 
behave.  And  it  was  only  my  want  of  a  knowledge 
of  language  that  brought  me  into  disgrace. ' ' 

Another  instance  was  the  occasion  of  his  first ' '  swear, ' ' 
when  his  own  terror  at  the  deed  was  sufficient  atone- 
ment. 

"I  remember  being  very  mad  once,  when  I  was  a 
boy.  I  went  out  to  the  south  side  of  the  house,  and, 
unable  to  hold  in  any  longer,  I  said  '  damn  it ! '  In 
a  minute  the  sky  looked  to  me  like  copper.  I  thought 
that  my  soul  was  gone  forever.  The  idea  that  I  had 
sworn  produced  a  terrible  impression  of  horror  upon 
me.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  done  it.  I  was 
brought  up  to  look  upon  profanity  with  utter  abhor- 
rence, and  I  was  frightened  almost  out  of  my  wits. 
I  really  expected  that  the  house  would  fall  on  me,  or 
that  the  earth  would  open  and  let  me  down.  In  my 
terror  I  started  to  run,  and  I  clipped  it  to  the  kitchen 
quicker  than  I  had  ever  done  it  before.  The  sweat  stood 
out  on  me  in  great  drops.     I  felt  the  shock  all  over." 


THE  VILLAGE  SCHOOL.  29 

His  earliest  scliool  days  were  not  such  as  to  forecast' 
a  brilliant  future,  for  he  was  deficient  in  memory,  pain- 
fully sensitive,  very  diffident,  and  embarrassed  by  a 
thick,  indistinct  utterance  ;  resulting  partly  from  bash- 
fulness,  and  partly  from  throat  troubles. 

He  began  his  education  at  a  little  school  kept  by  a 
widow  Kilbourn,  where  the  idleness  which  generally 
prevailed  was  emphasized  by  the  recital  of  the 
alphabet  twice  daily.  From  here  he  went  to  the 
district  school,  the  dispensary  of  learning  for  the 
country  children  of  the  neighborhood,  where  the 
school-mistress  wielded  the  switch  and  ferule,  alternat- 
ing the  use  of  these  instruments  with  instruction  in 
arithmetic  and  writing,  ' '  readings  from  the  Bible  and 
the  Columbian  Orator."  In  one  of  Mr.  Beecher's  ser- 
mons occurs  a  passage  recalling  the  school-house  of  his 
youth,  which  is  of  interest  not  only  as  a  picture,  but 
also  as  a  strong  figure  in  illustrating  a  beautiful 
thought.     It  is  this  : 

"I  very  well  remember  going  back,  after  having 
arrived  at  years  of  manhood,  to  the  school-house  where 
I  did  not  receive  my  early  education.  I  measured 
the  stones  which,  in  my  childhood,  it  seemed  that  a 
giant  could  not  lift,  and  I  could  almost  turn  them  over 
with  my  foot !  I  measured  the  trees  which  seemed  to 
loom  up  to  the  sky,  wondrously  large,  but  they  had 
shrunk,  grown  shorter,  and  outspread  narrower.  I 
looked  into  the  old  school-house,  and  how  small  the 
whittled  benches  and  the  dilapidated  tables  M^ere, 
compared  with  my  boyhood  impression  of  them !  I 
looked  over  the  meadows  across  which  my  little  tod- 
dling feet  had  passed.     They  had  once  seemed  to  me  to 


30  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

be  broad  fields,  but  now  but  narrow  ribbons,  lying 
between  the  house  and  the  water.  I  marveled  at  the 
apparent  change  which  had  taken  place  in  these  things, 
and  thought  what  a  child  I  must  have  been  when 
they  seemed  to  me  to  be  things  of  great  importance. 
The  school-ma' am — oh  what  a  being  I  thought  she  was  ! 
and  the  school-master — how  awestruck  I  was  at  his 
presence  !  So  looking  and  wistfully  remembering,  I 
said  to  myself,  'Well,  one  bubble  has  broken.'  But 
when  you  shall  stand  above,  and  look  back  with  celes- 
tial and  clarified  vision,  upon  this  world — this  rickety 
old  school-house  earth — it  will  seem  smaller  to  you 
than  to  me  that  old  village  school. " 

At  the  age  of  ten  years  a  more  earnest  course  of 
study  was  inaugurated  by  his  removal  to  the  private 
school  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Langdon,  in  the  town  of  Beth- 
lehem, near  by.  A  year  was  passed  in  this  place, 
where  the  unrestrained  freedom  of  the  kind,  indulgent 
household  in  which  he  lived,  allowed  him  long  sessions 
of  intercourse  with  woods  and  fields,  through  which 
he  roamed  at  will,  gratifying  that  love  for  nature  which 
was  a  strong  characteristic.  Little  advancement  was 
made  in  his  studies  by  such  a  derogatory  course,  his 
writing  was  bad,  his  spelling  worse,  and  the  smooth- 
ness of  his  Latin  recitation  showed  unmistakable 
"  cribbing,"  the  result  of  necessity,  and  an  unwise  ex- 
pedient. He  was  recalled  home,  and  soon  after  placed 
under  the  care  of  his  sister,  who  was  then  at  the  head 
of  a  young  lady's  school  in  Hartford,  where  Henry 
was  the  only  boy  among  forty  girls. 

The  history  of  this  period  shows  a  minimum  of 
scholarly  acquirement  and  a  maximum  of  careless  fun. 


LIFE  IN  BOSTON.  31 

and  practical  joking,  altliongli  the  impression  pre- 
vailed that  only  the  spur  of  necessity  was  needed  to 
arouse  a  dormant  ability,  the  existence  of  which  no  one 
doubted.  He  returned  to  Litchfield,  and  soon  after, 
at  the  age  of  twelve,  the  whole  atmosphere  of  his  life 
was  changed  by  the  removal  of  the  family  to  Boston. v-'' 
From  the  untrammeled  freedom  of  his  country  life  where 
the  woods  and  fields  were  his  play-grounds,  the  birds 
and  forest-creatures  his  mates,  to  be  suddenly  com- 
pressed and  limited  to  brick  walls  and  narrow  streets 
excited  a  depressing  influence  on  his  mind  that  increased 
the  melancholy  to  which  he  had  been  prone  from 
childhood.  This  was  also  augmented  by  his  being  en- 
tered at  the  Boston  Latin  School,  where,  repulsive  and 
uncongenial  as  was  the  course  of  study,  urged  on  by 
mingled  feelings  of  honor,  affection,  fear  of  disgrace^ 
appeals  to  his  conscience,  paternal  entreaties,  and  a 
sense  of  obedience  almost  religious,  he  finally  accom- 
plished the  work  assigned.  The  Latin  Grammar  had 
been  won,  but  at  dear  cost,  for  with  it  had  come  gloom, 
restlessness,  irritability,  and  dissatisfaction  with  his 
present  condition,  that  grew  with  secret  strength,  fos- 
tered by  the  reading  of  biographies  and  adventurous 
lives  of  Nelson  and  Captain  Cook,  vdth  which  his 
father  strove  to  divert  his  thoughts,  and  by  the  temp- 
tation to  similar  experiences  of  which  the  docks  and 
ship-yards  were  full.  It  finally  assumed  the  form  of 
a  determination  to  seek  a  life  of  freedom  and  adventure, 
the  sincerity  of  which  was  evident  from  his  energetic 
preparations  for  a  voyage,  and  from  the  testimony  of 
his  later  years,  for  in  one  of  his  sermons  he  says  :  "I 
recollect  three  or  four  instances  in  which  it  seems  to 


32  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

me  tliat  if  certain  occurrences  liad  not  taken  place 
just  as  they  did  I  should  have  been  overthrown.  If  I 
had  not  been  taken  out  of  Boston  at  one  time,  as  I  was, 
I  do  not  see  what  would  have  prevented  me  from  going 
to  destruction." 

Through  the  subterfuge  of  a  letter,  purposely  placed 
for  his  father's  inspection,  Henry  made  known  his  in- 
tention. Dr.  Beecher  received  it  with  apparent  appro- 
bation, and  shrewdly  suggested  that  the  boy  first  take 
a  course  in  mathematics  and  navigation  preparatory  to 
his  departure.  The  youth  gladly  acceded  to  the  prop- 
osition, and  was  soon  established  at  Mount  Pleasant 
J  School  in  Amherst,  Mass.,  where  he  was  placed  under 
the  special  care  of  a  genial,  manly  young  teacher,  be- 
tween whom  and  the  boy  a  firm  friendship  was  com- 
pacted. Under  the  instruction  of  this  Mr.  Fitzgerald, 
he  made  good  x^rogress  in  mathematics,  and  the  diffi- 
culties in  his  voice,  its  indistinctness  and  thickness, 
were  removed  in  a  great  measure  by  a  course  of  elocu- 
tion under  Prof,  J.  E.  Lovell. 

The  change  in  temperament  and  disposition  wrought 
by  this  return  to  country  life  and  the  renewal  of  old 
and  loved  associations  was  great  and  immediate,  and 
was  a  suitable  preparation  for  the  reception  of  those 
religious  truths  which  came  to  him  at  the  end  of  the 
first  year  during  a  season  of  revival.  He  united  with 
his  father's  church  in  Boston,  whereupon  his  dreams 
of  naval  ambition  were  merged  into  aspirations  for  the 
ministry,  with  a  view  to  which  two  years  of  happiness 
followed  at  Mount  Pleasant  in  preparation  for  col- 
lege. His  preparation  was  thorough  and  warranted  his 
entering  the  Sophomore  year,  an  opportunity  which 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  33 

his  father  thought  best  to  yield,  for  he  entered  the 
Freshman  year,  occupying  the  leisure  time  which  his 
advanced  standing  allowed,  in  becoming  familiar  with 
the  library  and  in  preparing  courses  of  reading  and 
self-culture  for  independent  study. 

An  extract  from  a  letter  of  recollections  which  Dr. 
Thomas  P.  Field,  of  Amherst  College,  and  a  classmate  of 
Mr.  Beecher's,  kindly  provides  us,  gives,  in  condensed 
form,  the  general  outline  and  coloring  of  his  college 
course,  which  Mrs.  Stowe  in  her  "Men  of  Our  Times" 
elaborates  into  a  detailed  and  highly  finished  picture. 

"Amherst,  September  13,  1881.""^ 
"  Students,  you  know,  are  not  looking  at  their  classmates  much 
with  reference  to  their  future,  and  do  not  treasure  up  particular  facts 
in  expectation  of  their  fame.  We  knew  very  well  that  Beecher  was 
a  man  of  superior  mental  powers,  but  I  cannot  say  that  we  antici- 
pated that  he  would  reach  the  position  he  has  attained.  I  entered 
the  class  of  '34  in  the  beginning  of  the  Sophomore  year.  Beecher 
was  then  a  member  of  it.  I  knew  he  was  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher's  son. 
That  fact  at  once  made  him  a  marked  man.  For  Dr.  Beecher  was 
the  great  preacher  at  that  time  of  New  England,  and  indeed  the 
greatest  pulpit  orator  in  the  country. 

"I  first  felt  Beecher's  power  in  the  class  prayer-meeting.  On  the 
first  meeting  I  attended  Beecher  was  present,  and  made  an  exhorta- 
tion on  the  duty  of  laboring  for  a  revival  of  religion  in  the  Fall  term. 
There  had  been,  I  tliink,  a  revival  in  the  previous  Spring  term.  He 
thought  it  wrong  to  suppose  there  could  not  be  a  revival  again  so 
soon.  I  was  struck  with  the  fluency  of  his  speech,  with  the  earnest 
Christian  feeling,  and  with  the  power  and  impressiveness  with  which 
he  spoke.  His  extemporaneous  speech,  even  when  he  was  a  student, 
was  always  able  and  eloquent. 

**I  was  not  impressed  with  his  recitations  at  all.     Indeed  I  knew 
very  well  that  he  had  no  desire,  and  made  no  effort,  to  be  a  good  rec- 
itative scholar.     He  always  argued  against  the  study  of  mathematics, 
maintaining  that  it  afforded  no  good  discipline  for  the  mind,  and 
8 


34  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

gave  himself,  as  it  was  understood,  more  to  general  reading  than  to 
the  prescribed  course  of  study — because  he  thought  that  was  the  best 
way  to  cultivate  the  mind. 

"  In  the  rhetorical  department,  however,  he  always  showed  hi* 
power.  We  were  required  at  that  time  to  write  many  more  essays 
than  the  students  of  the  present  day  do.  When  we  were  Sophomores, 
we  had  to  prepare  an  essay  for  the  Professor  of  Rhetoric  each  fort- 
night. We  came  together  one  hour  every  week,  to  hear  the  essaya 
read,  or  as  many  of  them  as  there  would  be  time  to  hear.  I  very  well 
remember  the  first  essay  I  heard  Beecher  read.  It  was  on  Pollok's 
'Course  of  Time,'  a  poem  which  was  then  awakening  much  interest 
among  orthodox  scholars.  Beecher  instituted  a  comparison  between 
Pollok  and  Milton,  maintaining  substantially,  if  I  recollect  right,  that 
PoUok  was  the  better  poet.  The  essay  was  very  interesting  and  well 
written.  Mr.  Beecher  would  be  far,  I  doubt  not,  from  entertaining 
any  such  opinion  now,  but  the  fact  shows  that  he  was  not  in  the 
habit  then  of  thinking  in  the  beaten  track.  I  think  the  essay  was 
published  afterward  in  one  of  our  college  periodicals. 

"  I  remember  that  Beecher  was  greatly  interested  while  in  college 
in  Phrenology,  and  I  think  that  he  gave  lectures  with  Orson  Fowler, 
one  of  our  classmates  (and  who  has  since  become  distinguished  as 
a  phrenologist),  in  some  of  the  country  towns  in  the  neighborhood. 
Mr.  Beecher,  I  have  the  impression,  did  the  lecturing  and  Fowler 
made  the  examination  of  heads. 

"  Beecher  was  interested,  even  in  college,  in  matters  of  reform.  I 
think  he  was  then  decidedly  anti-slavery  in  his  views,  and  '  totally 
abstinent '  in  opinion  and  practice,  in  respect  to  the  use  of  ardent 
spirits.  He  had  then,  as  he  has  always  had  since,  a  decided  vein  of 
humor,  and  love  of  fun.  And  you  would  often  see  on  the  chapel 
steps  a  large  number  of  fellows  around  Beecher,  when  there  would 
be  sure  to  be  continuous  roars  of  laughter. 

"But   I  do  not   remember  any   particular  witty  sayings,  though 

there  were  doubtless  many  which  might  have  been  preserved  if  we 

had  supposed  they  would  have  been  wanted  for  a  biographer  in  the 

future. 

* '  Truly  yours, 

"Thos.  p.  Field." 


RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE.  35 

Tlie  study  of  Phrenology,  which  Dr.  Field  mentions, 
was  begun  in  the  form  of  a  practical  joke  upon  a  fel- 
low-student who  avowed  himself  a  convert  to  the  belief 
and  was  to  give  lectures  on  the  subject  in  Mr.  Beech- 
er's  room.  The  interest  of  Beecher,  Fowler,  and 
others  was  aroused,  and  they  were  led  by  it  into  such 
an  earnest  course  of  phrenological  and  physiological 
research  of  metaphysics  and  mental  philosophy,  that  a 
society  was  formed  for  phrenological  interests,  a  simi- 
lar one  was  organized  at  Bowdoin,  through  Charles 
Beecher,  and  Henry  Ward  delivered  lectures  on  the 
subject  before  village  audiences.  From  the  first  he 
took  a  firm  stand  as  a  Christian  young  man,  partici- 
pating in  class  prayer-meetings  and  sharing  in  religious 
labors  among  the  neighboring  country  towns. 

His  religious  nature  was  very  deep  and  it  was  pro- 
foundly moved  by  a  revival  in  college  during  the 
Sophomore  year,  which  led  to  a  self -arraignment  and 
an  examination  of  the  hopes  and  enlightenments 
which  had  induced  him  to  join  the  Church,  that  left" 
him  in  miserable  anxiety  and  despair.  His  own  ac- 
count of  the  subsequent  revelation  of  the  divine  nature 
through  Christ  is  better  than  any  description  that 
could  be  given. 

"I  was  a  child  of  teaching  and  prayer  ;  I  was  reared 
in  the  household  of  faith ;  I  knew  the  Catechism  as 
it  was  taught  ;  I  was  instructed  in  the  Scriptures  as 
they  were  expounded  from  the  pulpit,  and  read  by 
men ;  and  yet,  till  after  I  was  twenty-one  years  old,  I 
groped  without  the  knowledge  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus. 
I  know  not  what  the  tablets  of  eternity  have  written 
down,  but  I  think  that  when  I  stand  in  Zion  and  be- 


36  HENRY   WART)  BFErHER. 

fore  God,  me  brightest  thino-  whicli  I  shall  look  back 


•^fD' 


upon  will  be  that  blessed  morning  of  May  when  it 
pleased  God  to  reveal  to  my  wandering  soul  the  idea 
that  it  was  His  nature  to  love  a  man  in  his  sins  for 
the  sake  of  helping  him  out  of  them  ;  that  He  did  not 
do  it  out  of  compliment  to  Christ,  or  to  a  law,  or  a  plan 
of  salvation,  but  from  the  fullness  of  His  great  heart ; 
that  He  was  a  Being  not  made  mad  by  sin,  but  sorry  ; 
that  He  was  not  furious  with  wrath  toward  the  sinner, 
but  pitied  him — in  short,  that  He  felt  toward  me  as  my 
mother  felt  toward  me,  to  whose  eyes  my  wrong-doing 
brought  tears,  who  never  pressed  me  so  close  to  her  as 
when  I  had  done  wrong,  and  who  would  fain,  with  her 
^yearning  love,  lift  me  out  of  troubled  And  when  I 
found  that  Jesus  Christ  had  such  a  disposition,  and 
that  when  His  disciples  did  wrong.  He  drew  them  closer 
to  Him  than  He  did  before — and  when  pride  and  jeal- 
ousy, and  rivalry,  and  all  vulgar  and  worldly  feelings, 
rankled  in  their  bosoms,  He  opened  His  heart  to  them 
as  a  medicine  to  heal  these  infirmities  ;  when  I  found 
that  it  was  Christ's  nature  to  lift  men  out  of  weakness 
to  strength,  out  of  impurity  to  goodness,  out  of  every- 
thing low  and  debasing  to  superiority,  I  felt  that  I  had 
found  a  God.  I  shall  never  forget  the  feelino;s  with 
which  I  walked  forth  that  May  morning.  The  golden 
pavements  will  never  feel  to  my  feet  as  then  the  grass 
felt  to  them  ;  and  the  singing  of  the  birds  in  the  woods 
— for  I  roamed  in  the  woods — was  cacophonous  to  the 
sweet  music  of  my  thoughts  ;  and  there  were  no  forms 
in  the  universe  which  seemed  to  me  graceful  enough  to 
represent  the  Being,  a  conception  of  whose  character 
had  just  dawned  upon  my  mind.     I  felt,  when  I  had. 


CHRIST  A  FRIEND.  37 

with  the  Psalmist,  called  upon  the  heavens,  the  earth, 
the  mountains,  the  streams,  the  floods,  the  birds,  the 
beasts,  and  universal  being,  to  praise  God,  that  I  had 
called  upon  nothing  that  could  praise  Him  enough  for 
the  revelation  of  such  a  nature  as  that  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ, 

"Time  went  on,  and  next  came  the  disclosure  of  a 
Christ  ever  present  with  me — a  Christ  that  never  was 
far  from  me,  but  was  always  near  me,  as  a  Companion 
and  Friend,  to  uphold  and  sustain  me.  This  was  the 
last  and  the  best  revelation  of  God's  Spirit  to  my  soul. . 
It  is  what  I  consider  to  be  the  culminating  work  of 
God's  grace  in  a  man  ;  and  no  man  is  a  Christian  until 
he  has  experienced  it.  I  do  not  mean  that  a  man  can- 
not be  a  good  man  till  then  ;  but  he  has  not  got  to  Je- 
rusalem till  the  gate  has  been  opened  to  him,  and  he 
has  seen  the  King  sitting  in  His  glory,  with  love  to  Him 
individually.  It  is  only  when  the  soul  naeasures  itself 
down  deep,  and  says,  '  I  am  all  selfish,  and  proud  and 
weak,  and  easy  to  be  tempted  to  wrong.  I  have  a  glim- 
mering sense  of  the  right,  and  to-day  I  promise  God 
that  I  will  follow  it ;  but  to-morrow  I  turn  the  promise 
into  sin.  To-day  I  lift  myself  up  with  resolutions,  but 
to-morrow  I  sink  down  with  discouragement.  There 
is  nothing  in  me  that  is  good.  From  the  crown  of  my 
head  to  the  sole  of  my  feet,  I  am  full  of  wounds  and 
bruises  and  putrefying  sores' — it  is  only  when  the 
soul  measures  itself  thus,  and  when  it  sees  rising  up 
against  this  conviction  of  its  own  unworthiness,  the 
Divine  declaration,  '  I  have  loved  thee ;  I  am  thy 
God  ;  I  have  called  thee  by  My  name  ;  thou  art  Mine, 
and  I  will  be  thy  salvation' — it  is  only  then   that  a 


38  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

piian  has  passed  through  death  to  life,  from  darkness 
to  light,  from  sorrow  to  joy." 

Upon  graduating  in  1834  he  rejoined  his  father,  who 
liad  two  years  previous  removed  to  Cincinnati. 


CHAPTER  n. 

BIOGRAPHICAL,      II. 

Mr.  Beecher's  first  steps  and  studies  in  preaching 
may  be  considered  to  have  really  commenced  during  ) 
his  college  course.  His  strict  attention  at  meetings  of  / 
prayer  and  exhortation,  both  in  college  and  in  the 
neighborhood,  combined  with  the  intimacy  of  an  upper 
classman,  a  zealous  Christian  worker,  who  exerted  a 
strong  influence  on  young  Beecher,  finally  drew  upon 
him  the  care  of  a  meeting  held  regularly  in  a  school- 
house  near  the  village,  and  with  unvarying  earnestness 
he  devoted  himself  to  this  charge,  the  beginning  of  his 
Christian  Ministry. 

One  st^p  had  already  been  taken  therefore,  to  which 
another  was  added  when,  upon  his  return  to  Cincinnati, 
after  graduating,  he  entered  upon  the  study  of  Theol- 
ogy at  Lane  Seminary.  Here,  after  a  short  time,  a 
strong  attachment  arose  between  himself  and  Prof. 
C.  E.  Stowe,  a  man  of  large  attainments  in  ecclesias- 
tical and  biblical  knowledge,  who,  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe  relates,  inspired  his  young  friend  "with  the  idea 
of  surveying  the  books  of  the  Bible  as  divinely  inspired 
compositions,  yet  truly  and  warmly  human,  and  to  be 
rendered  and  interpreted  by  the  same  rules  of  reason 
and  common  sense  which  pertain  to  all  human  docu- 
ments." 


40  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  was  at  this  time  holding  a 
principal  professorship  at  Lane  Seminary,  and,  as  the 
head  and  exponent  of  the  New  England  new-school 
theology  and  the  doctrine  of  man's  free  agency,  was 
equipped  for  and  launched  in  a  strong  controversy  with 
Dr.  Wilson,  the  advocate  of  the  old-school  theology  of 
"Scotch-Irish  Presbyterian  Calvinistic  fatalism,"  and 
the  doctrine  of  native  depravity  and  unworthiness. 
The  battle  was  a  fierce  one,  with  strong  adherents  on 
either  side,  the  students  of  the  Seminary,  and  notably 
his  own  sons,  upholding  and  assisting  Dr.  Beecher ; 
so  that  naturally  their  studies  were  from  the  standpoint 
of  dialectic  and  theological  attack  and  defence. 

Altliough  an  earnest  partisan  of  his  father,  Henry 
Ward  had  already  formed  a  broader  plan  of  belief  for 
himself,  differing  in  many  respects  from  that  of  Dr. 
Beecher.  Although  maintaining  the  same  view  of  the 
ministry,  its  aim  and  processes,  with  his  father,  Dr. 
Beecher' s  methods  and  his  unwavering  confidence  in 
them  were,  in  the  case  of  his  son,  so  qualified  by 
new  lines  of  study  and  thought,  that  employment 
of  them  would  have  been  not  only  inconsistent  but 
inefficient.  The  salvation  of  humanity  by  Divine 
agency,  through  the  salvation  of  individuals,  was  to  him 
the  great  end  to  be  obtained,  but  the  means  to  this 
end  was  a  problem,  the  complexity  of  which  ren- 
dered him,  as  he  neared  the  close  of  his  theological 
course,  the  victim  of  deep  depression  and  doubt. 

This  state  of  mind  was  enhanced  by  the  retraction  of 
a  brother  who  had  lately  become  an  unbeliever,  and 
withdrawn  from  the  ministry,  and  the  impulse  to  adopt 
some  other  course  in  life  was  often  strong  within  him. 


FIRST  SETTLEMENT.  41 

Several  months  of  successful  service  as  editor  of  the 
Cincinnati  Journal,  during  which  a  pro-slavery  riot 
gave  opportunity  for  the  ardent  expression  of  his  views 
of  slavery  and  freedom,  increased  the  tendency  toward 
another  profession,  which,  however,  was  for  all  time 
dispelled  by  a  fortunate  episode.  He  had  assumed, 
during  his  final  term  at  the  Seminary,  charge  of  a  Bible 
class,  and  in  the  succeeding  preparation  and  instruction 
there  came  in  time  a  gradual  clearing  of  all  doubt  as  to 
his  calling  and  its  methods,  followed  by  an  increasing 
and  definite  apprehension  of  his  mission,  and  of  the 
manner  of  obtaining  efficacious  results. 

Mrs.  Stowe  says:  "To  present  Jesus  Christ,  per- 
sonally, as  the  Friend  and  Helper  of  humanity,  Christ 
as  God  impersonate,  eternally  and  by  a  necessity  of  His- 
nature  helpful  and  remedial  and  restorative  ;  the  Friend 
of  each  individual  soul,  and  thus  the  Friend  of  all 
society ;  this  was  the  one  thing  which  his  soul  rested 
on  as  a  worthy  object  in  entering  the  ministry." 

With  the  eager  enthusiasm  and  conviction  consequent 
upon  this  spiritual  revelation,  he  accepted  at  once  the 
first  opportunity  that  was  presented  after  leaving  the 
Seminary.  This  proved  to  be  a  call  to  Lawrenceburg,  a 
small  settlement  near  Cincinnati,  on  the  Ohio  River ; 
his  experiences  here  he  has  himself  related  in  his  ser- 
mons in  the  following  extracts  : 

"Where  I  first  settled  in  the  ministry  the  ground 
was  low,  and  subject  to  overflow  sometimes  from  the 
great  Miami,  sometimes  from  the  Ohio,  and  sometimes 
from  both.  The  houses  that  were  built  in  the  early 
days  of  poverty  were  low  ;  and  generally  twice  a  year 
— in  the  autumn,   and  in  the  spring  when  the  snov/ 


42  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

melted  on  the  mountains — tlie  Ohio  came  booming 
down  and  overflowed ;  and  men  were  obliged  to  emi- 
grate. They  found  themselves  driven  out  of  their 
houses.  Their  cellars  were  submerged,  and  frequently 
the  lower  stories  of  their  dwellings  would  fill  with  water. 
And  they  betook  themselves  to  the  table-land  a  little 
back,  in  boats." 

"  I  go  back  now  to  my  own  ministry.  I  have  got  to 
begin  to  talk  about  myself  as  an  old  man,  before  long. 
I  have  been,  thus  far,  talking  as  though  I  were  young ; 
but  I  find  that  I  am  remembering  back  too  far  for  that, 
when  I  go  back  to  the  time  when  I -first  became  the  pas- 
tor of  a. church.  It  was  twenty  years  ago.  I  remember 
that  the  flock  which  I  first  gathered  in  the  wilderness 
consisted  of  twenty  persons.  Nineteen  of  them  were 
women,  and  the  other  was  nothing.  I  remember  the 
days  of  our  poverty,  our  straitness.  I  was  sexton  of 
my  own  church  at  that  time.  There  were  no  lamps  there, 
so  I  bought  some ;  and  I  filled  them  and  lit  them.  I 
swept  the  church,  and  lighted  my  own  fire.  I  did  not 
ring  the  bell,  because  there  was  none  to  ring.  I  opened 
the  church  before  prayer-meetings  and  preaching,  and 
locked  it  when  they  were  over.  I  took  care  of  every- 
J;hing  connected  with  the  building.  And  do  I  not 
remember  every  one  of  those  faces  ?  I  think  there 
were  but  two  persons  among  them  that  did  not  earn 
their  daily  living  by  actual  work  ;  and  these  were  not 
wealthy — they  were  only  in  moderate  circumstances. 
We  were  all  poor  together.  And  to  the  day  of  my 
death,  I  never  shall  forget  one  of  those  faces  or  hear 
one  of  those  names  spoken  without  having  excited 
in  my  mind  the  warmest  remembrances.      Some    of 


CALL   TO   INDIANAPOLIS.  48 

them  I  venerate,  and  the  memory  of  some  has  been 
precious  as  well  as  fruitful  of  good  to  me  down  to 
this  hour." 

After  a  short  period  of  this  ministerial  apprentice- 
ship, he  received  and  accepted  a  call  to  Indianapolis, 
where  with  his  wife,  whom  he  had  married  before  leav- 
ing Cincinnati,  he  lived  a  simple,  wholesome  life  of  in- 
tense activity,  where  chief  recreations  were  an  indul- 
gence in  agricultural  study  and  pastime,  a  natural  out- 
growth of  the  free  country  life  of  his  boyhood,  and  that 
revealed  itself  now  in  an  enthusiasm  for  choice  breeds 
of  domestic  animals  and  an  eager  interest  in  farm  and 
garden  culture. 

Here  he  began  the  study  of  his  fellow-men,  the 
searching  after  the  principles  of  humanity,  the  analysis 
of  human  nature' sworldngs  and  processes,  which,  coup- 
led with  the  insight  into  methods  and  principles  of 
sermon-writing  gained  by  his  close  study  of  the  Apos- 
tles' discourses,  formed  a  style  of  preaching  which  was 
magnetic  and  popular. 

The  reputation  thus  gained  w^as  not,  however,  the 
realization  of  his  highest  aim.  This  was  "  the  saving  of 
souls"  ;  to  do  which,  a  Divine  power  seemed  confirmed 
in  him  that  evinced  itself  in  the  remarkable  revivals  of 
religion  which  arose  in  Terre  Haute,  under  his  influence, 
and  in  his  own  pastorate  in  Indianapolis.  Of  this  time 
and  this  charge  he  makes  feeling  reference  in  one  of 
his  sermons. 

"  I  pass  to  my  second  parish  ;  and  how  many  beloved 
faces  rise  up  before  me  there  !  for  at  that  period,  after 
having  preached  about  four  years,  I  began  to  know 
how  to  preach  a  little,  and  how  to  gather  souls  into  the 


44  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

kingdom.  I  began  to  know  what  a  revival  was,  and 
how  to  conduct  one.  I  remember  scores  and  scores  of 
persons  that  were  then  so  small  that  I  could  put  my 
hand  on  their  head,  and  that  now  have  large  families, 
who,  from  the  day  they  were  baptized  to  this  hour, 
have  been  to  a  great  extent  under  my  care  or  influence. 

' '  Well,  I  love  those  persons  as  I  love  my  children,  al- 
most. I  have  no  time  to  think  about  them ;  but  that 
is  nothing.  Pearls  and  diamonds  do  not  waste  because 
the  owner  locks  them  up.  They  always  retain  their 
brilliancy  ;  and  if  he  keeps  them  locked  for  a  hundred 
years,  and  then  takes  them  out,  they  will  flash  as 
brightly  in  the  light  as  ever.  And  my  memory  of  these 
persons  will  never  grow  dim.  My  heart  goes  out  to  them ; 
and  I  guess  they  think  of  me.  I  think  they  requite  all 
the  love  I  bestow  upon  them.  When  dying,  many  and 
many  of  them  have  sent  me  messages.  Many  and  many 
of  them,  as  they  parted  from  this  shore,  bore  testimony 
that  the  sweetest  hours  of  their  life  were  those  passed 
under  my  instructions,  and  sent  back  messages  of 
encouragement  to  me.  How  many  times  I  think  of 
five  or  six  rare,  beautiful,  sainted  ones,  who  sent  me 
messages  from  the  other  side — I  think  they  were  half 
way  across  at  any  rate — that  my  preaching  of  Christ 
was  true  ;  that  they  had  gone  so  far  that  they  felt  it 
to  be  true  !  I  felt  as  though  they  were  messages  from 
heaven  itself.  And  shall  I  have  under  my  own  roof 
spirits  that  are  more  sacred  to  me  than  these  ? " 

It  was  at  the  end  of  the  eighth  year  of  this  faithful  and 
happy  ministry  that  Mr.  Beecher  received  and  accepted 
the  call  to  his  present  pastorate,  Plymouth  Congrega- 
tional Church  of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.     He  entered  upon 


ORIGIN  OF  PLYMOUTH  CHURCH.  45 

his  pastoral  duties  here  on  Sunday  morning,  October 
10th,  1847,  a  charge  which,  in  its  history,  and  in  the 
remarkable  career  of  its  pastor,  in  various  public 
functions  as  orator,  lecturer,  political  advocate,  and 
minister,  is  too  well  known  to  require  more  than  a 
brief  review. 

The  church  to  which  Mr.  Beecher  had  been  called 
owed  its  origin  to  two  facts.  In  1846  there  were  but 
thirty-nine  churches  in  Brooklyn,  a  city  then  of  nearly 
sixty  thousand  inhabitants,  and  of  these  churches  but 
one  was  Congregational.  The  need  of  more  societies 
of  this  denomination  was  obvious,  and  was  met  by 
prompt  action  on  the  part  of  several  prominent  Chris- 
tian gentlemen.  The  First  Presbyterian  Church,  then 
on  the  point  of  removal  to  the  new  edifice  in  Henry 
Street,  were  occupying  the  present  site  of  Plymouth 
Church,  which  property  they  offered  for  sale  for  $25,- 
000.  These  gentlemen  after  consultation  made  the 
purchase  for  $20,000,  then  called  a  meeting  for  the 
purpose  of  forming  a  new  Congregational  church,  at 
which  they  offered  the  property  thus  secured  for  the 
use  of  the  new  organization.  In  a  resolution  then 
passed  it  was  decided  to  commence  regular  services  on 
Sunday,  May  16th,  the  first  Sabbath  after  the  house 
should  be  vacated. 

Eeports  of  the  popularity  and  renown  of  Mr. 
Beecher  of  Indianapolis  had  already  aroused  Eastern 
interest  in  the  man  and  his  preaching,  and  through  the 
influence  of  his  friend  and  advocate  Mr.  William  P. 
Cutter,  of  New  York,  Mr.  Beecher,  who  was  then  in 
that  city,  was  asked  to  preside  at  the  opening  of  the 
new  Congregational  church  in  Brooklyn,   May  16th, 


46  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

1847.  Mr.  Beech er's  discourses  produced  a  strong  im- 
pression upon  his  audience,  and  at  a  subsequent  meet- 
ing in  June,  1847,  at  which  the  name  of  Plymouth 
Church  was  adopted,  he  was  elected  unanimously  by 
the  society  to  the  pastorate,  and  an  immediate  invita- 
tion was  given  him  to  assume  the  position. 

Mr.  Beecher  had  become  strongly  attached  to  his 
congregation  in  Indianapolis,  and  regarded  with  affec- 
tionate care  their  interests  and  welfare.  Apart  from 
this  interest  in  the  congregation  as  an  object  for  which 
he  had  labored  with  love  throughout  a  pastorate  of 
eight  years,  the  private  intimacies  and  domestic  asso- 
ciations which  had  grown  with  his  life  there  plead 
strongly  with  him  not  to  leave  his  home  in  the  West, 
where  the  frankness,  heartiness,  and  simplicity  of  the 
people,  the  hospitality,  generosity,  and  artlessness  of 
their  customs  and  modes  of  life,  found  sympathetic 
response  in  his  freedom-loving  nature. 

Two  months  passed  before  Mr.  Beecher,  influenced 
chiefly  by  the  ill-health  of  his  family,  signified  by  let- 
ter his  acceptance  of  the  invitation  ;  he  preached  his 
first  sermon  on  Sunday  morning,  October  10th,  1847. 
On  this  occasion  he  declared  his  standpoint  and  views 
on  questions  of  national  debate,  his  position  with  re- 
gard to  slavery,  war,  temperance,  and  other  reforms, 
and  defined  the  purposes  of  his  preaching,  of  which 
the  chief  was,  "that  it  should  be  a  ministry  of  Christ." 
The  public  services  of  installation  as  pastor  did  not 
take  place  until  a  month  later,  November  11th,  1847. 

Under  the  preaching  of  its  new  pastor,  the  Plymouth 
Church  grew  in  numbers  and  influence,  and  received 
large  accessions  almost  yearly,  as  the  fruit  of  frequent 


THE   PLYMOUTH   PASTORATE.  47 

revivals,  of  which,  the  most  noted  are  those  of  1852  and 
1858,  in  the  first  instance  ninety-one  persons  having 
united  with  the  church,  and  in  the  second,  three 
hundred  and  thii"ty-five  persons  being  brought  to  make 
profession  of  their  faith.  Mr.  Beecher's  labors  at  this 
post  have  been  zealous  and  unremitting,  and  through- 
out a  pastorate  of  thirty-four  years  there  have  been 
but  four  occasions  when  his  congregation  have  missed 
him  from  his  pulpit  for  a  protracted  length  of  time. 

These  absences,  all  of  them  involuntary,  are  given 
in  Plymouth  Church  Manual.  "In  March,  1849,  the 
pastor  was  taken  with  a  severe  illness,  which  confined 
him  to  the  house  for  two  months,  and  disabled  him 
from  preaching  until  September,  nor  did  he  recover 
his  full  strength  until  the  winter.  In  June,  1850,  the 
society,  of  its  own  accord,  gave  him  leave  of  absence 
to  visit  Europe,  and  he  did  not  return  until  September. 
In  1856,  the  society,  at  the  request  of  a  number  of 
eminent  clergymen  and  others,  voted  him  leave  of  ab- 
sence to  traverse  the  country  in  behalf  of  the  cause  of 
liberty,  then  felt  to  be  in  peril. 

"In  June,  1863,  the  society  requested  him  to  revisit 
Europe  for  his  health,  which  he  did,  returning  in 
November.  With  these  exceptions,  the  pastor  has 
labored  steadily  at  his  post  since  1847,  at  all  times 
other  than  the  regular  summer  vacation,  which  lasts 
on  the  average  six  weeks." 

The  truest  record  of  this  ministry  are  the  words  of 
Mr.  Beecher  himself,  who,  in  sermons  of  later  years, 
makes  frequent  reference  to  the  early  days  of  its  his- 
tory, and  reviews  different  periods  of  his  connection 
with  his  people  and  his  church. 


48  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

"You  know  I  have  been  here  twelve  years.  It 
makes  me  feel  gray  to  think  of  it !  When  I  came  here 
the  people  in  the  houses  in  this  street  were  not  here. 
I  am  almost  a  patriarch  of  this  part  of  Brooklyn ! 
With  the  exception  of  brother  Storrs,  of  our  own  de- 
nomination, Dr.  Cutter,  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Lewis, 
there  is  not  a  pastor  in  Brooklyn,  that  I  recollect,  who 
is  in  the  church  that  he  was  in  then.  All,  besides 
these,  have  removed,  or  gone  to  the  other  world,  in 
twelve  years'  time.  And  what  a  populous  period 
these  twelve  years  have  been  !  How  Time  lias  had  to 
run  !  What  business  he  has  had  on  his  hands  !  What 
developments  of  God's  grace  have  taken  j)lace,  wliich, 
if  they  were  to  be  unfolded  and  written,  would  fill  so 
many  books  that  the  world  could  hardly  contain  them  ; 
because  every  individual  case  would  fill  a  volume  ! 
And  what  a  work  has  been  accomplished  in  our  own 
midst !  It  is  literally  true  that  thousands  have  been 
converted  and  added  to  this  church,  of  such  as  should 
be  saved.  The  very  number  has  prevented  me  from 
having  any  specialty  of  acquaintance  v/ith  them  ;  and 
yet  it  only  needed  that  there  should  be  such  cases  as 
one  and  another  that  have  come  under  my  immediate 
notice,  to  produce  in  me  such  an  affection  for  this 
church  that  I  never  feel  so  near  heaven  as  when  I  am 
in  these  meetings." 

"  I  am,  in  the  providence  of  God,  so  circumstanced  in 
•/  reference  to  public  speaking,  which  seems  to  be  my 
specialty,  that  I  put  my  whole  strength  into  that,  and 
give  up  everything  else  to  it.  Paul  said  that  he  could 
not  administer  ordinances,  and  that  still  less  could  he 
serve  tables,  because  his  call  was  to  preach ;  and  it 


CHRISTIAN   FELLOWSHIP.  49 

would  seem  as  tliougli  my  call  was  to  confine  myself 
to  public  speaking.  Therefore  I  cannot  follow  out  any 
detail  of  friendships  and  acquaintanceships  with  the 
different  members  of  my  congregation ;  but  that  does 
not  prevent  my  feeling  the  strongest  heart-yearnings 
toward  them.  My  sense  of  this  is  so  exquisite  that  ■ 
sometimes,  on  Sabbath  mornings,  it  seems  to  me  as 
though  I  stand  among  the  assemblies  of  the  just.  Oh, 
these  Sunday  mornings — how  sweet  they  come  upon 
the  world  !  and  they  seem  sweeter  and  sweeter  to  me  as 
I  get  nearer  to  heaven.  How  rich  are  the  consolations 
which  we  derive  from  sweet  fellowship  with  one  another ! 
How  glorious  is  our  coming  together  in  the  assembly  of 
the  saints  !  How  our  songs  roll  out,  and  storm  the 
very  gates  of  heaven  !  How  our  coming  together,  our 
thinking  together,  our  rejoicing  together,  our  praying 
together,  our  weeping  together,  and  our  singing  to- a 
gether,  have  knit  us  together  !  How  many  pews  have 
been  knit  to  pews  !  How  many  families  have  been 
prepared  to  live  better  !  How  many  men  have  made 
acquaintances  of  each  other  !  How  many  have  gone 
out  in  bands  to  work  together  !  And  how  many  there 
are  in  whom,  though  you  scarcely  know  them,  you 
take  a  warm  interest — toward  whom  your  heart  is  like 
the  orient !" 

Of  Plymouth  Church  Mr.  Beecher  is  still  (1882)  the 
pastor  ;  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  he  will  remain  its  pas- 
tor till  the  end  of  his  active  life.  Several  attemj)ts 
have  been  made  to  draw  him  away  to  other  fields, 
without  success.  After  thirty-five  years  of  public 
ministry  there  is  no  sign  of  either  diminished  power  or 
diminished  popularity.  The  church  is  always  crowded, 
4 


50  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

except  for  a  few  weeks  in  tlie  latter  part  of  the  sum- 
mer, when  the  residents  of  Brooklyn  have  left  their 
city  homes  for  the  country  and  Mr.  Beecher  has  not 
yet  left  the  pulpit  for  his  usual  summer  vacation. 

The  spiritual  resiilts  of  his  ministry  are  evidenced  by 
constant  conversions  and  accessions  to  his  church,  and 
by  its  practical  ministry  of  good  works  and  active 
Christian  philanthropy.  Whenever  he  speaks  else- 
where than  in  his  own  church  (and  no  speaker  is  in 
greater  request  for  public  gatherings)  he  is  always 
sure  of  a  crowded  house  and  a  warm  reception  ;  and  it 
is  certain  that  he  is  nowhere  more  a  favorite  with  all 
classes  than  in  his  own  home  ;  and  this  in  spite  of  the 
great  effort  to  drive  him  fi'om  his  pulpit  and  the 
city  of  his  home. 

I  do  not  propose  to  enter  in  these  pages  upon  any 
detailed  recital  of  the  ah-eady  too  familiar  facts  in  re- 
spect to  what  is  known  as  "  the  great  scandal,"  a  scan- 
dal through  which  it  is  certain  no  other  man  in 
America  could  have  lived  and  retained  his  position 
and  influence.  In  1870  Mr.  Beecher  was  the  editor- 
in-chief  and  a  principal  owner  of  the  Christian 
Union,  which  was  then  rapidly  increasing  in  circu- 
lation and  influence.  He  had  formerly  been  editor 
of  the  Independent,  a  journal  of  similar  character,  but 
had  resigned  in  favor  of  Mr.  TUton,  who  for  some 
years  was  extremely  successful  and  popular,  but  had 
by  this  time  fallen  somewhat  under  a  cloud.  Finding 
his  own  morality  impeached,  he  adopted  the  peculiar 
defence  of  darkly  insinuating  that  Mr.  Beecher  was 
open  to  grave  suspicion  in  the  same  direction,  and 
finally  formed  a  determination  to  drive  him  from  his 


School   House  in  Whitinsville,  Mass.,  in   which    Mr.  Beecher 
taught  in    1831    and    1833. 


Church   in   Indianapolis  in   which   Mr.    Beecher  preached. 


MR.  BEECHER  FALSELY  ACCUSED.  53 

pulpit  and  from  the  city,  by  means  of  an  accusation  of 
some  vaguely  defined  offence  to  Mr.  Tilton's  own 
family.  This  offence  he  soon  stated  to  be  one  of  im- 
proper advances,  which  Mrs.  Tilton  had  repelled  ;  and 
while  he  whispered  this  to  his  friends,  he  persuaded 
Mr.  Beecher,  through  a  famous  "  mutual  friend,"  that 
Mrs.  Tilton  had  so  far  misconstrued  his  friendship  for 
her  as  to  be  the  victim  of  a  morbid  passion  herself, 
which  had  utterly  wrecked  her  happiness  and  health. 
Believing  that  this  would  never  have  happened  if  he 
had  been  sufficiently  discreet  himself,  Mr,  Beecher,  with 
the  instinct  of  a  true  gentleman,  overwhelmed  himself 
with  reproaches,  both  by  word  and  by  letter.  Mr. 
Tilton  professed  to  be  entirely  satisfied,  and  invited 
Mr.  Beecher  to  resume  friendly  relations  ;  but,  at  the 
same  time,  continued  for  years  to  whisper  suggestions 
that  there  was  some  hidden  fault,  which  would  be  dis- 
astrous to  Mr.  Beecher  if  exposed.  At  last,  a  direct 
charge  against  both  Mr.  Beecher  and  Mrs.  Tilton  was 
made  in  some  disreputable  newspapers.  But  not  until 
June,  1874,  did  Mr.  Tilton  himself  assume  any  respon- 
sibility for  a  charge.  So  long  as  the  charge  was  whis- 
pered privately  or  published  only  in  a  disreputable 
sheet,  without  a  responsible  accuser,  neither  Mr. 
Beecher  nor  the  public  paid  any  attention  to  it.  As 
soon  as  it  assumed  a  definite  form  with  a  responsible 
accuser,  Mr.  Beecher  submitted  the  whole  matter  to 
the  investigation  of  a  committee,  consisting  of  some  of 
the  most  eminent  and  respected  members  of  his 
church  and  society.  They  reported  unanimously, 
after  giving  Mr.  Tilton  a  full  hearing,  that  the  charge 
was  entirely  false  ;  and  this  report  was  unanimously 


54  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

adopted  by  the  cliurcli  and  congregation,  Mr.  Tilt  on 
tlien  brought  an  action  at  law  upon  the  same  charge. 
After  a  trial  lasting  six  months,  in  which  the  only 
evidence  against  him  consisted  of  the  letters  already 
referred  to  (which  were  ambiguous  in  meaning)  and 
alleged  verbal  confessions,  which  he  under  oath  ex- 
plicitly denied,  the  jury  were  discharged  without  a 
verdict,  standing  nine  for  unconditional  acquittal  of 
Mr.  Beecher,  one  for  unconditional  conviction,  and 
two  who  voted  on  some  ballots  for  conviction,  on  others 
for  acquittal.  This  suit  was  never  tried  again.  The 
"mutual  friend,"  however,  brought  another  suit 
against  Mr.  Beecher,  involving  the  same  questions  ; 
but  when  it  was  pushed  to  trial  by  Mr,  Beecher' s 
counsel,  the  plaintiff  became  so  well  satisfied  that  he 
must  fail,  that  he  discontinued  the  suit,  paying  all 
costs. 

The  regularity  of  the  church  proceedings  by  which 
Mr.  Beecher  was  acquitted  having  been  questioned, 
a  council  of  Congregational  churches  and  ministers 
was  called  by  Plymouth  Church  to  advise  with  it 
respecting  its  proceedings.  It  was  probably  the 
largest  council  ever  called  by  any  church  in  the  his- 
tory of  Congregationalism,  and  it  included  repre- 
sentative men  from  all  sections  of  the  country,  many 
of  whom  came  to  the  council  with  strong  prejudices 
against  Mr.  Beecher  on  theological  grounds,  and  a 
considerable  number  entertaining  serious  suspicions, 
founded  on  previous  public  reports,  respecting  his 
moral  integrity.  While  this  council  did  not  undertake 
a  direct  investigation  of  the  charges,  a  task  impossible 
of  execution  by  such  a  body  without  power  to  compel 


THE   FAMOUS   COUNCIL.  55 

the  attendance  of  witnesses  or  to  administer  an  oath, 
it  examined  into  the  whole  history  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  church  with  respect  to  the  case,  subjecting  Mr. 
Beecher  to  a  searching  cross-fire  of  qiiestions  from 
all  members  of  the  council  in  an  open  session  lasting 
for  several  days.  After  nearly  a  week  spent  in  a 
most  thorough  and  scrutinizing  inquiry,  it  extended 
to  Mr.  Beecher,  without  a  dissenting  voice,  the 
Christian  fellowship  and  sympathy  of  the  churches, 
and  expressed  the  confidence  of  the  entire  council 
in  his  integrity.  It  appointed  a  tribunal  of  distin- 
guished jurists,  wholly  outside  of  Plymouth  Church,  ' 
to  investigate  any  charges  which  might  be  made  ;  but 
no  charges  were  ever  brought  before  them.  The  New 
York  and  Brooklyn  association  of  ministers,  to  which 
Mr.  Beecher  belonged,  also  appointed  a  committee  of 
investigation,  which  publicly  called  for  charges  or 
evidence  implicating  him.  To  this  public  demand  there 
was  no  resiDonse,  and  the  association  unanimously 
declared  him  entitled  to  Christian  confidence  and  fellow- 
ship. The  whole  affair  has  been  somewhat  compli- 
cated in  the  public  mind  by  Mr.  Beecher' s  unwisdom 
in  the  selection  of  some  confidential  friends  at  this 
trying  period  of  his  life,  prior  to  the  first  publication 
of  the  scandal,  and  by  his  evident  endeavor  to  keep 
it  from  becoming  public,  an  endeavor  not  only  not 
strange  but  abundantly  justified  by  the  injurious 
effects  of  its  publication.  Perplexity  and  doubt 
have  undoubtedly  been  left  in  the  minds  of  some 
who  have  never  had  the  opportunity  to  ^investigate 
with  care  the  charges  and  the  singularly  inadequate 
evidence   on  which   they  were  based  ;    and  suspicion 


56  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

has  been  enhanced  in  some  quarters,  doubtless,  by 
personal,  political,  and  theological  prejudices  ;  but  as 
the  final  result  of  the  whole  matter,  Mr.  Beecher 
retains  his  position  as  the  most  eminent  preacher  and 
one  of  the  great  thought  leaders  in  America,  while  his 
princijjal  accuser,  who  at  one  time  occupied  a  foremost 
position  in  journalism  and  literature,  has  almost  disap- 
peared from  public  recognition. 

The  home  life  of  a  public  man  is  not  public  property, 
and  I  have  no  right  to  introduce  others  to  Mr.  Beecher' s 
home.  But  those  who  have  known  him  in  the  privacy 
of  personal  intercourse,  and  especially  those  who  have 
seen  him  in  his  own  home,  surrounded  by  his  grand- 
children, will  always  think  that  no  one  less  privileged 
has  truly  known  Mr.  Beecher.  His  children  are  grown 
and  married  and  have  homes  of  their  own.  In  winter 
he  lives  with  his  elder  son,  Henry  Barton  Beecher,  in 
Brooklyn  ;  in  the  summer  he  lives  at  his  country  resi- 
dence at  Peekskill,  where  the  same  son  lives  with  him. 
He  personally  supervised  the  erection  and  interior  dec- 
orations of  this  house,  desiring,  as  he  says,  to  express 
himself  in  an  idealized  American  home.  The  foundations 
of  this  home  were  laid  when,  somewhat  over  twenty 
years  ago,  Mr.  Beecher  bought  a  farm  at  Peekskill,  two 
miles  or  more  back  from  the  river,  and  occupied  the 
little,  low  cottage  that  stood  on  the  place.  Near  by  rose 
the  hill  with  the  commanding  view,  where  the  present 
residence  stands,  and  from  the  first  this  hill  was  re- 
garded as  the  site  of  a  possible  house,  an  air-castle,  to 
be  made  the  perfect  Christian  home.  Meanwhile,  as 
opportunity  and  time  allowed,  nature  was  invited  to 
prepare  surroundings  for  the  imaginary  house  and 


HOME   AT   PEEKSKILL.  57 

eagerly  accepted  the  invitation.  The  world  was  asked 
for  trees  and  sent  them,  so  that  to-day  the  farm  has 
one  of  the  rarest  and  finest  collection  of  trees  and 
shrubs  to  be  found  in  any  private  American  demesne. 
England,  Europe,  China,  Japan,  the  United  States,  all 
have  been  laid  under  tribute,  and  as  a  result  there  are 
two  or  three  hundred  varieties  of  trees  and  shrubs  ; 
over  twenty  different  maples,  as  many  varieties  of 
pines,  and  great  beds  of  azaleas,  rhododendrons,  and 
the  choicest  ornamental  flowering  growths.  The  house 
is  architecturally  pleasing,  but  neither  obtrusive  nor 
ostentatious  ;  a  basement  of  granite  ;  a  two-storied 
superstructure  of  brick,  a  many-gabled  roof,  and  a 
broad  veranda — these  are  the  features.  The  interior  is 
a  study  in  the  combined  beauty,  simplicity,  and  har- 
mony of  the  rooms,  for  while  each  room  possesses  an 
individuality  of  its  own,  each  yet  lives  in  art  fellowship 
with  its  neighbor.  There  is  no  paint  in  the  house  from 
garret  to  cellar,  except  in  the  vestibule  ;  the  wood- 
work is  all  of  natural  woods — cherry  on  the  first  floor, 
ash  on  the  second,  pine  in  the  attic.  The  mantels  are 
of  wood  decorated  with  tiles,  and  walls  and  ceilings 
are  papered,  with  patterns  which  Mr.  Beecher  him- 
self selected.  While  there  are  assuredly  costlier 
houses  imperiously  and  loudly  demanding  admiration, 
it  is  doubtful  if  there  was  ever  one  which  by  exquisite 
harmony  of  proportion  and  treatment  more  modestly 
invited  it.  Some  one  has  characterized  the  great  Eu- 
ropean cathedrals  as  "frozen  music."  Mr.  Beecher' s 
home  is  a  pastoral  sym]3hony.  Here  he  has  a  delight- 
ful retreat  during  the  summer  from  the  toils  of  his 
public  work  throughout  the  major  portion  of  the  year  ; 


58  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

here  when  the  toils  of  his  life  are  over,  may  he  enjoy  a 
well-earned  leisure  in  a  prolonged  old  age,  surrounded 
by  his  friends  and  by  those  who  are  the  best  and 
most  enjoyed  of  all  his  friends— groups  of  merry  little 
children. 


CHAPTEE  III. 

MR.    BEECHER  AS   A   PREACHER. 

Mr.  Beecher's  career  as  a  preacher  has  been  with- 
out a  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  Church  in  America. 
For  thirty-five  years  he  has  preached  in  the  metropolis 
of  the  country  ;  in  the  same  pulpit ;  with  no  consider- 
able rest ;  with  very  rare  exchanges  ;  in  the  same  com- 
munity ;  and  to  a  congregation  in  which  there  are  not 
a  few  who  have  been  regular  attendants  for  a  large 
part  of  this  third  of  a  century.  During  all  this  time 
the  church  has  been  always  crowded  ;  every  sitting 
taken  ;  the  aisles  full ;  frequently  all  standing-room 
occupied.  To  accommodate  the  demand  for  seats  the 
pew-holders  have  generally  consented  to  vacate  their 
seats  in  the  evening,  so  that  every  Sunday  Mr.  Beecher 
preaches  to  two  congregations  ;  and  it  is  no  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that  he  has  employed  as  much  influence  to 
induce  his  own  people  to  stay  away  Sunday  night  as 
most  ministers  do  to  get  them  out  to  church.  During 
a  larger  part  of  this  time  his  sermons  havQ  been  re- 
ported in  full  in  one  or  two  newspapers,  at  times  in 
three  or  four,  and  partially  in  several  others ;  so  that 
to  repeat  a  sermon  was  practically  impossible.  He  has 
seen  the  whole  aspect  of  both  public  questions  and 
theological  problems  change  in  this  third  of  a  century  ; 
but  the  tide  has  not  stranded  him,   and  he  is  still 


60  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

looked  up  to  by  a  large  body  of  progressive  ministers 
ill  the  orthodox  churches  as  their  leader ;  while  his 
always  bold  and  fearless  and  sometimes  erratic  utter- 
ances have  not  separated  him  from  the  evangelical  con- 
nections and  affiliations  in  which  his  spiritual  sympa- 
thies as  well  as  his  birth  and  education  hold  him.  Out 
of  his  ministry  and  in  connection  with  it  have  grown 
Tip  three  Sunday-schools  in  Brooklyn,  which  were 
models  when  they  were  organized,  and  are  still  studied 
as  patterns  of  what  Sunday-schools  may  be  and  do. 
All  three  are  liberally  supported  by  the  church.  The 
name  of  Plymouth  Church  has  been  given  to  numer- 
ous Congregational  churches  all  over  the  land,  and  the 
essential  spirit  and  doctrine  of  its  X)ulpit  is  taught  in 
innumerable  pulpits  of  both  that  and  other  denomina- 
tions. The  sjoiritual  work  of  the  church  has  kept  pace 
with  its  organic  growth ;  and  while  sporadic  revivals, 
so-called,  are  less  common  in  its  history  than  for- 
merly, it  is  no  uncommon  thing  at  the  Spring  commun- 
ion to  see  a  hundred  converts  sitting  doA\Ti  for  the  first 
time  at  the  Lord's  table.  The  power  of  this  joreacher 
has  been  deep,  wide-spread,  and  permanent ;  and  these 
three  elements  are  all  that  are  needed  to  demonstrate 
the  reality  of  pulpit  power.  However  men  may  differ 
as  to  its  Dolue,  its  extent  cannot  be  questioned.  The 
study  of  such  a  pulpit  j)henomenon  is  as  valuable  as  it 
is  interesting,  even  though  there  may  be  elements  in 
the  genius  of  the  preacher  which  defy  analysis. 

1.  The  Sources  of  Ids  Power. — Pre-eminent  among 
the  sources  of  Mr.  Beecher's  power  stands  his  vital 
FAITH.  In  this  respect  he  ranks  with  Paul,  Luther, 
Wesley,   Channing,  with  all  men  who  have  produced 


LIFE    OF   HENRY    WARD   BEECHER.  61 

great  moral  and  spiritual  results  and  whose  moral  and 
sx)iritual  powers  liave  been  founded  on  unwavering 
vital  faith.  Mr.  Beecher  is  one  who  walks  with  God,  "* 
who  carries  with  him  continually  a  conscious  presence 
of  God  as  of  a  friend,  whose  thoughts  turn  instinctive- 
ly and  naturally  to  God,  and  who  draws  his  life  from 
God.  The  means  of  attaining  this  Divine  companion- 
ship are,  with  different  men,  through  different  faculties  ; 
they  look  out  upon  God  through  different  soul-win- 
dows ;  they  approach  by  different  avenues  of  thought 
and  spmtual  emotion.  Mr.  Beecher  finds  the  fullest 
realization  of  companionshij^  through  ideality  and  love, 
and  its  result  is  shown  in  his  preaching.  The  sx:)irit  of 
Christ  imbues  every  sermon,  and  allegiance  to  Christ 
underlies  them  all.  His  texts  are  mostly  from  the  New 
Testament ;  in  the  New  Testament  largely  from  the 
Gospels.  He  owed  his  conversion,  or  at  least  his  coming 
out  into  the  clear  light  of  day,  to  a  reading  of  the  life 
of  Christ  in  one  of  the  Gospels  at  a  single  sitting,  and 
ever  since  that  event  he  has  been  studying  that  life 
and  unfolding  his  theology  and  his  ethics  from  it.  It 
is  not  merely  the  illumination  of  incidents  of  Gospel 
narrative,  nor  his  inspiring  faith  in  the  Divine  origin 
of  the  Gospel  and  Him  whose  life  it  records,  that  is  the 
power  of  his  preaching,  but  above  all  things  else  it  is  a 
certain  indescribable  but  invaluable  living  sympathy 
with  Christ,  the  result  of  years  of  study,  of  i)rayer,  and 
of  Christian  experience. 

A  secondary  element  of  his  power  is  his  intellect- 
ual INSIGHT,  or,  as  Dr.  R.  S.  Storrs  has  called  it,  "men- 
tal sensibility,  emotional  responsiveness. ' '  His  mind  is 
quick  in  action,  far-seeing,  arriving  at  truths,  not  by 


62  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

logical  processes,  but  by  intuitions,  and  in  this  respect 
resembles  the  penetration  of  mind  of  a  clear-headed 
woman,  or  still  more  the  prophetic  powers  of  the 
ancient  Hebrew  seers.  This  is  at  once  a  source  of  de- 
fect and  excellency  in  his  preaching.  His  keen  insight 
will  discover  a  distant  glowing  point  of  truth  to  which 
he  at  once  attains,  o'erleaping  all  the  intermediate  by- 
ways of  logic  and  sequence,  over  which  less  brilliant 
minds  must  travel  at  slower  pace  to  reach  an  under- 
standing of  the  final  principle.  He  will  present  a 
truth  which  at  the  moment  he  perceives,  with  little  or 
no  effort  to  show  its  relation  to  other  truths,  and  there- 
fore excej^tion  will  be  taken  to  the  logic  and  consis- 
tency of  his  preaching.  These  exceptions  will  rarely 
be  valid  however,  for  as  all  truth  is  really  consistent, 
the  inconsistencies  of  Mr.  Beecher  are  those  of  expres- 
sion and  form  of  statement,  not  of  the  fundamental 
and  essential  principles  of  truth. 

While  this  intellectual  activity  has  its  defects  it  is  of 
inestimable  value  in  producing  a  vigor  of  mind  which, 
says  Dr.  R.  S.  Storrs,  "  has  made  him  apt  and  ready  for 
every  occasion  ;  that  responsiveness  which  is  called  for 
in  every  minister,  but  which  has  been  called  upon  in 
him  more  than  in  any  other  man,  perhaps,  in  the 
whole  American  pulpit,  during  the  last  twenty -five 
years.  He  has  never  been  found  wanting  in  readiness 
for  the  occasion,  no  matter  what  the  subject  may  have 
been,  or  what  the  scene.  His  mind  has  been  full  of 
vigor,  and  has  kindled  spontaneously^,  by  collision  with 
persons,  or  with  themes,  or  with  circumstances,  when- 
ever the  occasion  has  been  presented." 

Akin  to  this  intellectual  insight,  although  not  the 


INTELLECTUAL   ACTIVITY.  63 

same,  is  the  wide  extent  and  the  keenness  of  his  imag- 
inative FACULTIES.  He  has  the  power  of  imaging, 
of  presenting  in  concrete  and,  so  to  speak,  visible 
forms,  the  moral  meanings  of  beauty  and  deformity. 
It  is  the  unique  faculty  of  not  only  perceiving  "ser- 
mons in  stones,  books  in  the  running  brooks,  and  good 
in  everything,"  but  the  still  rarer  power  of  presenting 
these  truths  to  other  men,  and  educating  a  duller  mind 
to  perceive  them  for  itself. 

This  element  of  his  productions  meets  with  most  im- 
mediate recognition  and  fullest  treatment  at  the  hands 
of  writers  on  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching,  and  it  will 
therefore  be  pardoned  if  rather  long  extracts  are  intro- 
duced here  from  those  who  have  said  the  best  things 
in  the  best  way  about  his  imagination. 

Prof.  ISToah  Porter  writes:  "Mr.  Beecher  is  emi- 
nently imaginative.  His  jDower  of  drawing  ideal  pict- 
ures of  the  mind's  eye,  and  of  gilding  them  with  the 
sunlight  of  his  own  warm  heart,  is  marvellous,  if  it  be 
judged  from  the  images  of  a  single  discourse.  But 
w^hen  estimated  by  the  streams  of  sermons,  speeches, 
and  lectures  which  seem  to  flow  unceasingly  from  his 
fertile  fancy  in  inexhaustible  variety,  it  astonishes  us 
by  its  productive  power,  as  well  as  by  the  copious  and 
felicitous  dictation  which  this  creative  x)ower  has  ever 
at  command," 

Prof.  Hoppin  discourses  at  greater  length  ujoon  the 
imaginative  quality  of  Mr.  Beecher' s  mind  in  the  fol- 
lowing extract :  * 


*  Henry  Ward  Beecher.     Prof.  James  M.  Hoppin.     New  Englander, 
Vol.  29,  1870. 


64      "  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

"  We  see  in  him  as  in  tlie  old  preachers  and  prophets 
the  high  moral  uses  of  the  imagination.  He  has  the 
poet's  quick  eye  to  see  the  spiritual  sense  in  the  home- 
liest things,  in  the  most  common  facts  and  events. 
These  are  not  always,  it  is  true,  of  a  highly  religious 
character.  Every  one  who  has  been  a  boy  is  delighted 
by  the  humorous  description  of  a  school- boy  on  a  Sat- 
urday afternoon  as  he  roams  the  fields  and  woods  with 
an  old  rusty  gun  whose  trigger  is  hopelessly  out  of 
order,  a-nd  who  makes  heroic  efforts  of  achievements 
under  immense  difiiculties.  Such  an  illustration  forces 
a  smile,  perhaps  broadening  into  a  laugh,  on  the  most 
solemn  face,  but  it  is  by  no  means  sure  that  wholesome 
humor  in  the  piilpit,  when  it  comes  naturally,  when 
sudden  and  irresistible,  and  when  it  is  made  subser- 
vient to  more  earnest  objects,  is  always  out  of  place. 
The  mediaeval  j^reachers,  Latimer,  Luther,  and  most 
of  the  old  reformers,  did  not  think  so.  At  least  this  is 
Mr.  Beecher'  s  effective  way  often  of  getting  a  hearing, 
of  making  his  speech  vivid,  of  rousing  attention,  of 
giving  truth  an  incisive  force,  darting  it  into  the  open 
and  unguarded  place.  Like  Shakespeare,  he  first 
makes  the  people  laugh  and  then  weep  ;  as  he  says  in 
his  characteristic  illustration  (not  this  we  believe  a 
pulpit  one)  of  a  milk-pan  filled  with  milk,  that  to  tip 
it  on  one  side  is  of  a  certainty  to  insure  a  correspond- 
ing rise  on  the  other.  This  is  very  hazardous  in  such 
serious  work  as  preaching,  and  few  can  imitate  Mr. 
Beecher  in  this,  and  doubtless  many  are  justly  offended 
even  in  him.  But  who  is  there  that  cannot  feel  the 
beauty  and  force  of  such  a  natural  and  simple  illustra- 
tion as  the  f ollovsdng  from  the  sermon  on  '  The  Prob- 


PULPIT   HUMOR.  65 

lem  of  Joy  and  Suffering  in  Life '  ?  '  When  the  rude 
ox  or  fierce  wind  has  broken  off  the  shrub,  and  laid  it 
down  on  the  ground  lacerated  and  torn,  it  lies  there 
but  a  few  hours  before  the  force  of  nature  in  the  stem 
and  in  the  root  begins  to  root ;  and  some  new  bud» 
shoot  out ;  and  before  the  summer  shall  have  gone 
round,  the  restorative  effort  of  nature  will  bring  out 
on  that  shrub  other  branches.  And  shall  the  heart  of 
man  be  crushed,  and  God  send  sweet  influences  of 
comfort  from  above  to  inspirit  it,  and  that  heart  not  be 
able  to  rise  above  its  desolateness '  ?  Mr.  Beecher  is 
a  poet,  and  it  takes  something  of  a  poet  to  preach 
Christ's  gospel.  Who  cannot  understand  the  rough 
vigor  of  words  like  these :  '  If  you  choose  to  take  a 
pole  and  stir  up  men  from  the  bottom,  you  will  find 
plenty  of  mud ;'  or  of  the  graphic  and  shrewd  figure 
of  digging  up  a  tree  and  cutting  off  its  long  anchoring 
and  hold  tap-root,  in  the  sermon  entitled  '  The  Victo- 
rious Power  of  Faith  ? '  Illustrations  so  fresh,  apt, 
timely,  natural,  forcible,  form  an  element  of  style  that 
may  be  called  its  vital  expression,  and  which  is,  after 
all,  nothing  more  than  stating  truth  itself  in  such  liv- 
ing forms  that  it  comes  home  to  the  common  mind, 
and,  while  it  pleases,  fastens  as  with  a  nail." 

Keen  and  comprehensive  as  are  these  analyses  of 
Prof.  Porter  and  Prof.  Hoppin,  that  of  the  Rev.  Wil- 
liam M.  Taylor  is  even  more  graphic  and  apposite.* 

"  Another  peculiarity  that  distinguishes  Mr.  Beecher, 
and  one  which  largely  contributes  to  that  originahty 


*  Henry  Ward  Beecher.    Kev.  Wm.  Taylor.    Scottish  Review,  October, 
1859. 


66  HENRY    WARD   BEE   HER. 

of  wliich  we  have  spoken,  is  to  be  found  in  the  power- 
ful grasp  and  wide  range  of  his  imagination.  In  this 
respect,  we  believe  him  to  be,  if  not  the  first,  at  least 
in  the  first  line  of  the  preachers  of  his  day.  He  is  a 
true  poet,  albeit,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  he  is  entirely 
innocent  of  verse.  Many  of  these  sparkling  fragments 
have  as  much  of  the  creative  element  in  them  as  would 
make  the  fortune  of  a  score  of  poet  laureates.  To  use 
one  of  his  own  comparisons,  they  are  like  beautiful 
sj)ring  flowers,  full  of  fragrant  perfume,  and  worth 
more  by  far  than  acres  of  '  the  dried  hay '  which  is 
stacked  up  in  the  pages  of  our  would-be  poets.  He 
appears  to  be  equally  at  home  in  the  beautiful,  the 
sublime,  and  the  terrible  ;  but  he  is  most  in  love  with 
beauty.  When  he  chooses,  he  can  array  himself  in 
the  rough  garment  of  an  ancient  prophet,  and  bring 
before  his  hearers  a  vision  of  awful  grandeur  and  ap- 
palling power  ;  and  there  are  many  passages  in  his  ad- 
mirable Lectures  to  Young  Men  which  are  almost 
unequalled  for  the  vividness  with  which,  they  bring 
dark  life-j^ictures  before  the  mind,  and  the  weird  spell 
with  which  they  bind  the  reader,  until,  at  the  close,  a 
cold  shudder  runs  through-  the  frame,  and  the  very 
hair  is  made  to  stand  on  end.  The  description  of  the 
progress  and  fate  of  the  gamHer,  with  its  four  scenes 
and  tragic  end,  is  of  the  most  graphic  and  dramatic 
character,  and  we  know  of  few  things  in  pulpit  elo- 
quence which  may  be  compared  with  the  peroration  of 
the  lecture  in  which  it  is  given.  It  reminds  us  of  our 
great  dramatist  more  than  of  any  preacher ;  and  when 
uttered  from  the  pulpit,  it  must  have  fallen  like  a 
thunderbolt  upon  the  audience.      But,    though  thus 


EXQUISITE  CRITIC  OF  ART.  67 

a61e,  like  Prospero,  to  conjure  np  the  tempest  when 
he  pleases,  he  delights  rather  to  charm  with  the  beau- 
tiful. He  may  occasionally  visit  Sinai  mth  its  crash- 
ing thunder,  but  his  dwelling-place  is  on  Mount  Zion 
the  '  beautiful ; '  besides  the  '  waters  of  Shiloh  that 
flow  softly  ; '  and  his  articles  and  discourses  abound  in 
the  liveliest  conceptions  and  combinations  of  beauty. 
There  is  in  the  '  Summer  of  the  Soul,'  'a  rhajDsody  of 
the  pen  upon  the  tongue,'  in  the  concluding  paragraph 
of  which  we  have  a  series  of  the  most  delightful  imagin- 
ings, in  which  one  follows  another,  like  shower  after 
shower  of  variated  beauty,  in  the  best  species  of  fire- 
works. The  possession  of  such  a  glorious  imagination, 
too,  has  enabled  him  to  understand  and  appreciate  the 
creative  works  of  others.  No  man  has  a  truer  sympa- 
thy with  poetry  than  he,  though  he  seldom  quotes  a 
line  of  it.  The  siglit  of  a  fine  painting  will  transport 
him  into  rapture,  or  melt  him  hi  to  tears  ;  and  the 
strains  of  music,  like  those  of  Handel  or  Beethoven,  or 
Mendelssohn,  make  his  heart  vibrate  with  responsive 
chords.  He  is  qualified,  from  his  own  imagination, 
for  being  an  exquisite  critic  of  the  fine  arts  ;  and  some- 
times, in  his  discourses  and  essays,  he  has  given  us 
specimens  of  his  ability  in  this  respect,  which  manifest 
the  most  refined  taste,  coupled  with  a  most  discrimi- 
nating judgment.  There  is  in  the  first  series  of  the 
*Life  Thoughts'  a  comparison  of  the  71st  Psalm  to 
one  of  Beethoven's  symphonies,  which,  for  its  own 
inherent  beauty,  as  well  as  for  its  truthful  description 
of  that  which  is  at  all  times  most  difficult  to  describe, 
must  be  admitted  to  be  in  the  highest  style  of  criti- 
cism ;  and  when  he  ventures  to  speak  of  the  '  bards  of 
5 


68  HENHV    WARD   BEECIIER. 

the  Bible,'  it  is  in  such  a  way  as  to  mark  at  once  liis 
strong  sympathy  with  their  impassioned  utterances, 
and  his  nice  appreciation  of  the  differences  which  dis- 
tinguish them.  ^ 

' '  But  this  is  not  all.  The  faculty  of  imaginative  in- 
sight, which  he  possesses  in  such  a  high  degree,  enables 
him  to  see  most  wonderfully  into  those  analogies  be- 
tween the  external  and  the  internal,  which  it  is  ever 
the  proj^erty  of  genius  to  bring  to  light.  Hence  his 
discourses  are  like  strings  of  pearls.  They  are  full  of 
the  finest  illustrations,  drawn  from  every  source,  and 
rising  from  the  speaker's  heart  like  water  from  a  foun- 
tain. This  is  indeed  their  distinctive  peculiarity — they 
are  thoroughly  spontaneous  ;  they  are  not  laid  aside, 
and  hoarded  up,  as  we  have  known  some  men  to  do, 
until  an  opportunity  occurs  for  using  them  ;  neither 
are  they  the  result  of  the  soul-travail  of  laborious 
effort,  but  they  spring  up  out  of  the  subject  like  way- 
side flowers,  which  are  plucked  as  he  passes,  and  given 
in  all  their  freshness  and  fi^agrance  to  the  companions 
of  his  journey.  Nor  does  their  naturalness  strike  us 
more  than  their  abundance.  There  seems  to  be  no 
limit  to  the  exuberance  of  his  fancy,  or  the  wealth  of 
Ms  imagination. 

"  'For  rhetoric,  he  cannot  ope 

His  mouth  but  out  there  iiies  a  trope.'  " 

Supplemental  to  his  faith,  his  intellectuality,  and 
his  imagination,  is  his  HUMAisriTY,  It  is  the  value 
which  he  places  upon  man,  the  solicitude  for  material 
comfort  and  spiritual  welfare,  the  enthusiasm  of  his 
devotion  to  freedom,  that  have  characterized  him  as  a 


INTENSELY  HUMAN.  69 

man  of  great  emotion  and  broad  sympathies.  "What- 
ever interests  men,  interests  him  ;  whatever  stirs  men' s 
hearts,  stirs  his  heart  deeply.  This  emotive  power, 
this  qnick  responsiveness  to  appeal,  this  susceptibility 
to  human  experiences,  is  at  once  the  generating  and 
propelling  power  in  Mr.  Beecher.  It  is  the  steam  and 
force  of  his  activity,  it  gives  fire  and  passion  to  all  that 
he  utters,  and  brings  him  into  close  relations  with  all 
classes  of  men.  In  brief,  he  is  an  intensely  human 
preacher. 

Dr.  R.  S.  Storrs,  in  his  estimate  of  Mr.  Beecher' s 
sources  of  power,  says  of  this  characteristic :  "I  should 
put  next,  I  think,  his  quick  and  deep  sympathy  with 
men  ;  his  wonderful  intuitive  perception  of  moods  of 
mind,  which  make  these  stand  out  before  him,  like 
a  procession  passing  in  the  street.  You  say,  '  This  is 
genius.''  Of  course  it  is  ;  but  it  is  the  genius  you  ob- 
serve, not  of  the  dramatist  or  the  poet ;  it  is  the  genius 
of  the  great  preacher,  who  catches  his  suggestions,  his 
inspiration  even  from  the  eyes  or  the  faces,  shining  or 
tearful,  of  the  people  before  him.  In  a  lower  sense,  in 
a  sense  how  infinitely  lower  and  yet  m  a  true  sense,  we 
may  say  that  a  man  who  has  that  power  is  like  the 
Master  who  knew  what  was  in  men  ;  who  discerned  it 
intuitively ;  who  made  every  precept,  every  promise, 
every  instruction,  every  invitation,  drive  at  that  precise 
state  of  mind  which  he  saw  palpable,  and  present,  and 
personal  before  him." 

This  human  sympathy  can  only  come  from  a  nature 
which  includes  in  its  breadth  and  generosity  all  classes 
of  men,  the  poor  and  the  rich  alike,  with  whom  he  joys 
in  their  gladness  and  weeps  in  their  sorrow.     "No 


70  HENRY   WAPD    BEECHER. 

preacher, ' '  says  Dr.  Haweis,  *  ' '  ever  impressed  us 
more  with  the  feeling  of  living  with  the  life  of  his 
people.  He  wishes  to  be  one  with  them,  not  under- 
rating their  difficulties,  not  imposing  imaginary  and 
disheartening  standards  of  life  and  conduct,  but  with 
each  new  standard  supplying  a  motive  power,  that  so 
none  may  put  their  hand  to  the  plough  and  turn  back. 
Although  he  would  always  rather  rejoice  with  them 
than  suffer  with  them,  he  is  content  to  bear  their  sor- 
rows, hear  their  confessions,  and  be  depressed  by  their 
doubts  and  troubles.  There  is  something  almost 
Pauline  in  the  way  he  seems  at  times  to  lift  the  bur- 
den of  each  one  individually,  to  hold  on  to  the  souls 
of  his  people  as  one  who  cannot  bear  to  let  them  go, 
whilst  feeling  that  they  must  go,  and  are  going  '  from 
the  great  deep  to  the  great  deep.'  " 

Professor  Hoppin  says  to  like  effect :  "The  elements 
of  common- sense,  of  reason,  of  nature,  of  a  large  hu- 
manity, are  in  such  preaching.  When  he  says  of  a 
child  that  as  soon  as  he  knows  how  to  love  father  and 
mother,  and  to  say  'Dear  father,'  and  '  Dear  mother,' 
then  he  knows  how  to  love  and  worship  God — people  say 
*  That  is  true, '  and  they  think  they  have  thought  like 
this  themselves  before  Mr.  Beecher  thought  it,  notwith- 
standing that  they  have  acquired  a  new  idea.  He 
thus  makes  the  people  a  part  with  himself ;  he  takes 
them  into  his  confidence ;  he  strikes  into  the  real 
current  of  their  thinking  ;  he  speaks  as  if  speaking 
out  of  their  thought.      There  is  a  strong  propulsion 


*  Henry  Ward  Beecher.     H.   E.   Haweis.     Contemporary  Review,  Vol. 
19,  1872. 


INTENSELY  HUMAN.  71 

given  to  his  words  by  the  combined  unconscious  con- 
sent of  many  minds  who,  as  it  were,  listen  apiDroving- 
ly  as  if  to  their  own  ideas.  He  has  indeed  found  the 
great  secret  of  popular  power,  such  as  John  the  Bap- 
tist had,  such  as  St.  Bernard  had,  such  as  Luther  had. 
He  is  a  '  king  of  men '  in  moral  and  spiritual  things. 
He  takes  hold  of  all  classes.  .  .  .  He  is  encour- 
aging to  those  in  doubt.  He  is  a  hope-bringer.  He 
believes  in  man.  He  helps  men.  He  is  sympathetic 
to  every  kind  of  mind.  He  does  not  croak  or  scold.  He 
is  not  solemn  and  stately,  though  he  is  in  earnest,  and 
sometimes  terribly  so." 

This  human  sympathy,  and  the  value  which  he 
places  upon  the  human  soul  and  its  greatest  interests, 
is  the  quality  of  Mr.  Beecher's  life  and  preaching 
which  has,  above  all  other  characteristics,  gained  for 
him  his  renown  as  a  preacher  for  and  to  the  people. 
It  has  been  a  subject  for  the  most  expanded  and 
most  detailed  treatment  in  all  analyses  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
preaching,  and  the  extracts  quoted  here  are  but  a 
small  part  of  the  great  store  of  writings  on  this  topic. 

A  fifth  element  of  Mr.  Beecher's  power  is  his  large 
fund  of  COMMON-SENSE.  Faith,  intellectual  insight, 
imagination,  humanity,  all  would  be  less  prompt 
agents  in  his  work  as  a  preacher  of  the  people,  were 
it  not  for  the  sustaining  power  of  his  common-sense, 
which  maintains  an  even  balance  between  practical 
illustration  and  poetical  imagery. 

It  is  the  fine  adjustment  of  his  faculties,  and  the 
power  of  a  neutralizing  judgment,  that  keeps  him  wdth- 
in  the  sphere  of  his  hearer's  understanding,  and  that 
recalls  him  by  an  instinctive  impulse  when  he  is  con- 


72  HEXRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

scious  of  too  great  a  flight  of  fancy  or  imagination. 
Many  who  lack  this  quality  of  level-headedness,  whose 
efficiency  is  impaired  by  a  preponderance  of  idealism, 
are  termed  visionary,  and  exert  but  a  small  degree  of 
popular  influence,  but  he  who  possesses  this  mental 
equipoise  has  that  jDOwer  of  dispensing  comfort  and 
contentment  which  warrants  brilliancies  of  thought 
and  speech  that  weary  us,  "no  more,"  as  says  Dr. 
R,  S.  Storrs,  "than  do  the  red  banners  of  the  cardinal- 
flower  by  the  mossy  brook-side,  or  the  gorgeous  flame 
of  the  golden-rod  amid  the  ferns  and  brake."  "  The 
late  Mr.  F.  W.  Robertson,"  says  an  English  re- 
viewer, estimating  this  characteristic  of  Mr.  Beech- 
er'  s  preaching,  ' '  managed  to  draw  the  teeth  of  many 
an  offensive  dogma,  by  attaching  a  highly  spiritual 
meaning  to  the  doctrinal  letter.  This  is  not  always 
Mr.  Beecher's  method,  but  the  most  exasperating  shib- 
boleths become  harmless  in  his  hands,  owing  to  his 
singular  faculty  of  seeing  a  common-sense  side  to  every 
question  :  in  short,  his  gospel  is  emphatically  the  gos- 
pel of  common-sense.  In  his  highest  flights  of  thought, 
in  his  deepest  expressions  of  religious  feeling,  he  never 
loses  a  certain  solid  sobriety.  To  combine  this  with 
an  impetuous  temperament  and  a  burning  enthusiasm, 
such  as  he  undoubtedly  possesses,  is  a  rare  if  not  an 
original  gift.  How  well  Mr.  Beecher  employs  thought 
and  passion,  common-sense,  and  a  quiet,  mystical  re- 
ligious fervor,  perhaps  they  only  can  quite  estimate 
who,  to  use  a  slang  expression,  'sit  under  him.'  " 

The  employment  of  humor  as  an  element  in  preach- 
ing has  often  been  excepted  to.  Humor  is  not,  how- 
ever, a  characteristic  of  Mr.  Beecher  alone,  for  other 


SARCASTIC   BUT   GENIAL.  73 

great  preachers  are  open  to  tlie  same  accusation.  The 
wit  and  humor  of  Mr.  Beecher,  although  keenly  sar- 
castic on  occasions,  is  invariably  tempered  by  genial 
good -feeling,  a  quality  that  is  often  lacking  in  the  sar- 
casm of  his  contemporaries.  The  true  apprehension  of 
this  ]3oint,  however,  is  given  by  Dr.  Taylor  in  the  ar- 
ticle previously  quoted  from. 

"But  we  must  pass  on  to  speak  of  Mr.  Beecher' s 
humor,  without  some  mention  of  which  any  sketch  of 
him  would  be  signally  incomplete.  This  power  is  pos- 
sessed by  him  in  large  measure,  and,  like  everything 
else  about  him,  it  is  jDerfectly  natural.  He  never  goes 
out  of  his  way  to  say  a  funny  thing,  nor  does  he  ever 
say  it  merely  for  fun's  sake,  for  it  is  with  him  a  power 
more  telling  than  the  artillery  of  logic.  We  grant, 
indeed,  that  ridiciile  is  not  always  a  right  test  of  truth,  . 
and  we  are  disposed  to  admit  that,  in  ordinary  circum- 
stances, the  puljjit  is  not  the  place  for  the  disjjlay  of 
humor  ;  yet  there  are  some  arguments  which  can  only 
be  met  by  a  reductio  ad  ahsurdum,  and  it  does 
strike  us  as  somewhat  strange  that  preachers  who, 
like  Rowland  Hill,  Berridge,  Spurgeon,  and  many 
others,  have  given  loose  rein  to  their  bit  have  been 
among  the  most  eminently  successful  in  their  ministry. 
Whether  this  may  be  in  consequence  of  their  wit  or  in 
spite  of  it,  we  are  not  prepared  to  say,  we  simply  in- 
dicate the  fact ;  but  we  fearlessly  express  our  convic- 
tion that  a  witty  something,  even  in  the  pulpit,  is  by 
no  means  so  sinful  as  a  witless  nothing,  however  solemn 
it  may  sound.  Mr.  Beecher's  humor  is  always  ex- 
pressive, but  it  sometimes  borders  on  the  coarse,  and 
in  this,  perhaps,  more  than  in  anything  else,  one  feels 


74  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

disposed  to  qnestion  the  fineness  of  his  taste  ;  but,  then, 
much  allowance  must  be  made  for  a  man  of  his  natural 
temperament  and  rollicking  disposition.  He  says 
many  of  these  things,  we  believe,  before  he  is  aware 
that  anything  out  of  place  has  escaped  him,  and  in 
justice  to  his  reputation  it  must  be  mentioned  that 
many  of  his  most  grotesque  and  humorous  expressions 
have  occurred  in  connection  with  the  public  intimations 
he  makes,  and  not  at  all  in  the  body  of  his  sermons. 
It  is  his  custom  to  make  such  announcements  before 
he  gives  out  his  text,  and  sometimes  he  will  talk  for 
half  an  hour  on  topics  which  come  thus  incidentally 
before  him,  in  a  strain  of  bold  and  caustic  criticism, 
which  must  often  try  severely  the  gravity  of  his  audi- 
ence. The  great  redeeming  feature  of  his  wit  is  the 
sturdy  common-sense  that  constantly  pervades  it  ;  yet 
it  must  be  confessed,  that  the  very  sharpness  of  his 
'  hits '  tends,  however  paradoxically  it  may  seem,  to 
blunt  the  effect  Avhich  they  produce,  and  may  not  un- 
frequently  take  away  from  the  power  of  appeals  which 
otherwise  would  be  absolutely  irresistible.  When, 
however,  his  humor  is  under  the  restraint  of  his  pen,  it 
is  everything  that  can  be  desired,  and  the  fine  taste 
which,  in  the  heat  of  extempore  utterance,  is  for  the 
time  dethroned  assumes  its  wonted  sway." 

His  common-sense,  his  balance  of  faculties,  in  spite  of 
the  vehemence  of  his  emotions,  the  clearness  of  his  in- 
sight, and  the  brilliance  of  his  imagination,  hold  him  in 
close  relations  vdth  the  actualities  of  life.  He  is  wings 
to  the  song,  but  he  does  not  fly  so  far  away  from  earth 
that  he  cannot  be  seen  and  heard.  His  common-sense, 
in  spite  of  his  ideality,  makes  him  a  practical  teacher. 


CHAPTEE  ly. 

METHODS    OF   STUDY. 

There  is  a  very  general  impression,  that  Mr.  Beecher 
is  a  brilliant  man  with  a  vivid  imagination,  a  paint- 
er's   power  of   description,  a  genial   humor,    a  large 
heart  fnll  of  fervid  feeling,  and  that  he  is  in  conse- 
quence a  brilliant  off-hand  extempore  speaker  ;  but 
that  he  is  no  student,  is  the  common  remark  of  innu- 
merable critics,  who  would  have  us  believe  that  this 
ever-flowing  scoring  is  never  filled,  yet  never  gets  dry  ; 
that  he  is  a  sort  of  widow's  cruse,  that  supplies  un- 
ceasingly, but  is  never  supx:)lied.     Young  men,    am- 
bitious to  emulate  his  genius,   imagine  they  will  do 
it  best  by  learning  to  talk  brilliantly,  and  never  guess 
that  it  is  equally  essential  to  success  to  have  something 
to  say.     In  fact,  however,  Mr.  Beecher  is  no  mean  stu- 
dent.    That  he  is  a  peculiar  and  somewhat  irregular 
one,  that  he  studies  by  moods  and  not  by  the  hour, 
is   true  ;  but  it  is  also  true  that,  as  a  rule,  he  never 
speaks  on  any  subject  which  he  has  not  made  his  own 
by  previous  study ;  and    that    there    are    few  minis- 
ters in  the  New  York  pulpit  who  are  more  familiar 
with  the  course  of  modern  thought  than  he,  though 
there  are  many  who  keep  a  better  account  of  what 
is  in  the  books,  and  where  to  find  it.     And  although 
it  is  fair  to  assume  that  he  is  now  drawing  largely 


76  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

from  accumulated  resources,  as  most  men  do  who  liave 
passed  the  line  of  sixty  years,  he  is  still  a  very  con- 
siderable student,  both  of  men  and  of  books. 

He  is,  in  the  first  place,  and  has  been  from  the  begin- 
ning, a  hard  student  of  ministerial  helps.  In  his  early 
ministry,  perhaps  before,  he  made  a  careful  study  of 
English  Literature,  and  of  the  celebrated  English  cler- 
gymen. "I  was,"  says  Mr.  Beecher,  speal-dng  of  his 
€arly  experience  at  Lawrenceburgh,  ' '  a  great  reader  of 
the  old  sermonizers.  I  read  old  Robert  South  through 
and  through.  I  saturated  myself  with  South  ;  I  formed 
much  of  my  style  and  of  my  handling  of  texts  on  his 
methods.  I  obtained  a  vast  amount  of  instruction  and 
assistance  from  others  of  these  old  sermonizers,  who 
were  as  familiar  to  me  as  my  own  name.  I  read 
Barrow,  Howe,  Sherlock,  Butler,  and  Edwards  partic- 
ularly." The  best  analysis  we  ever  heard  of  the  great 
preachers  of  England,  we  heard  once  in  a  private  con- 
versation from  him,  in  which  he  pointed  out  which 
preacher  to  study  for  the  use  of  adjectives,  which  for 
the  purest  Anglo-Saxon,  and  which  for  other  proper- 
ties of  style.  He  also  gave  the  best  discrimination  be- 
tween Dante  and  Milton  we  have  ever  heard  or  seen. 

Not  only  has  he  been  a  student  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  classic  authors  and  of  English  Literature,  but 
the  whole  range  of  Literature  comes  within  his  hori- 
zon. A  friend  once  met  him  in  a  bookstore  poring 
over  a  medical  book.  "Going  to  turn  doctor,  Mr. 
Beecher?"  said  he  inquiringly.  "No,  sir,"  said  Mr. 
Beecher  promptly;  "but  I  study  everything— except 
theology."  The  latest  works  on  mental  science  are  on 
Ms  shelves,  and  their  leaves  are  cut,  and  their  edges 


HIS  GENIUS  FOR  ACQUIRING  KNOWLEDGE.  77 

show  signs  of  use.  His  seeming  contempt  for  theology 
is  not  for  the  science  of  religion,  but  for  that  form  of 
It  which  is  borrowed  from  the  scholastic  period,  and 
which  abounds  in  modern  theological  treatises  ;  his 
contempt  is  not  for  abstruse  study,  nor  for  abstruse 
science,  but  for  what,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly, 
he  regards  as  science  falsely  so  called. 

Coupled  with  study  of  all  sorts  of  literature,  is  a 
rare  aptitude  for  study.  His  genius  for  acquiring  is 
as  great  as  his  genius  for  imparting.  It  is  reported 
that  Mrs.  Beecher  has  said  that  he  can  go  into  a  book- 
store and  come  out  again,  and  give  a  good  account  of 
the  information  the  books  contain,  from  having  read 
their  titles  as  they  stand  on  the  shelves,  a  divination  as 
startling  as  the  power  attributed  to  He  Quincey,  of 
translating  his  morning  newspaper  into  Greek,  for  the 
sake  of  recreation.  His  power  of  rapid  absorption  is 
illustrated  by  an  incident  in  my  own  j^ersonal  ex- 
perience with  Mr.  Beecher.  I  once  had  occasion  to 
submit  to  him  the  proof-sheets  of  a  new  work  of  over 
two  hundred  pages  on  certain  aspects  of  phrenology. 
We  were  at  dinner  ;  while  the  rest  of  us  were  finis iiing 
the  second  course  he  took  a  seat  by  the  window, 
turned  over  the  pages,  passed  on  their  contents,  stop- 
ping here  and  there  to  read  with  more  care  a  page  or 
paragraph,  and  to  criticise  or  commend,  and  at  the 
close  gave  us  an  analysis  of  the  book,  which  most  men 
would  have  acquired  only  in  a  morning's  study. 

We  believe  he  read  Fronde's  History  of  England  be- 
tween the  dinner  courses.  Such  readino;  is  an  unsocial 
habit  which  we  do  not  recommend,  but  it  is  one  which 
certainly  never  would  be  fallen  into  by  a  man  who  was 


78  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER, 

''  no  student.' '  We  do  not  think  Mr.  Beeclier  pretends 
to  be  a  Hebrew  scholar  ;  in  fact  we  have  a  strong  recol- 
lection of  his  somewhere  disavowing  Hebrew  scholar- 
ship. But  he  is  no  mean  proficient  in  the  Greek  of  the 
New  Testament.  We  do  not  suppose  he  would  contest 
the  palm  for  supremacy  with  the  Greek  professor  who, 
on  his  death-bed,  said  he  had  given  his  life  to  the  eluci- 
dation of  the  first  declension,  but  he  had  made  a  mis- 
take, he  should  have  confined  himself  to  the  dative 
case.  But  his  chief  reliance  among  commentators  is 
Alford's  Greek  Testament,  which  is  comprehensible 
only  to  one  who  has  at  least  a  respectable  familiarity 
with  the  Greek ;  and  that  he  is  so  familiar  is  evident 
alike  by  occasional  sermons,  and  by  his  "Life  of 
Christ,"  He  has  also  a  habit  of  relying  upon  special- 
ists in  different  departments  for  information  on  special 
points,  and  by  their  aid  verifies  his  own  impressions 
or  less  thorough  information.  The  gold  which  they 
have  dug  out  of  the  mine  he  mints  and  puts  into  cir- 
culation. The  best  evidence  of  his  accuracy  is  the 
fact,  that  speaking  and  writing  on  so  large  a  variety  of 
topics,  and  as  a  combatant  in  controversies  so  many 
and  so  hot,  it  is  very  rare  that  critics  have  been  able 
to  prove  him  at  fault  in  any  important  fact,  whether 
stated  as  an  argument  or  used  as  an  illustration. 

Turning  from  Mr.  Beecher's  general  methods  as  a 
student  to  his  more  special  methods  of  pulpit  prepa- 
ration, he  exhibits  three  characteristics  which  have  in- 
tensified his  power  as  a  preacher. 

By  far  the  greater  portion  of  his  time  is  spent  in  gen-_ 
eral  study  and  a  much  less  proiDortion  of  time  in 
special  preparation  for  particular  sermons  than  most 


HIS  GENIUS  FOR  ACQUIRING  KNOWLEDGE.  79 

ministers.  He  is  always  studying,  whereas  his  habit, 
at  least  in  later  years,  has  been  to  prepare  his  Sunday 
morning  sermon  on  Sunday  morning,  and  his  Sunday 
evening  sermon  in  the  afternoon,  selecting  his  text, 
analyzing  his  subject,  making  his  skeleton  and  notes, 
and  writing,  whatever  he  does  write,  on  Sunday. 

The  Rev.  S.  B.  Halliday,  of  Brooklyn,  L.  I.,  gives  the 
following  account  from  a  long  and  intimate  association 
with  Mr.  Beecher:  "To  many,  indeed,  Mr.  Beecher's 
preparations  for  the  pulpit  will  seem  as  remarkable  as 
almost  anything  else  that  may  be  written  or  said  of 
him.  The  manuscript  taken  to  his  pulpit  is  a  mere 
brief,  emphatically  a  skeleton.  These  notes  could  be 
written  usually  on  a  single  note  page.  Earlier  in  his 
ministry,  many  of  his  sermons,  if  not  all,  were  delivered 
from  quite  full  manuscripts  ;  now  only  on  very  special 
occasions,  perhaps  half  a  dozen  times  in  the  last  fifteen 
years,  as  when  he  has  been  severely  criticised  or  cen- 
sured by  the  papers  or  pulpit,  has  he  written  out  and 
read  a  reply  to  what  had  been  said.  Not  infrequently 
his  utterances  on  important  points  have  been  so  grossly 
distorted  as  to  be  only  caricatures,  and  these  discourses 
were  for  the  purpose  of  correcting  misstatements,  and 
were  always  carefully  prepared.  But  such  sermons  are 
exceptional.  He  is  a  speaker  rather  than  a  writer ; 
and  when  he  writes  it  is  always  at  a  heat,  as  it  were, 
extemporaneously.  I  doubt  if  Mr.  Beecher  could  be 
asked  to  do  anything  that  would  be  more  objection- 
able to  him  than  to  sit  down  to  the  table  to  write  sev- 
eral hours  a  day  through  the  week.  I  know  several 
strong  dislikes  of  his,  but  none  other  seems  so  invet- 
erate  to  me  ;   and  if  exigencies   potent  enough  com- 


80  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

bined  to  secure  a  promise  to  write  regularly,  I  would 
not  be  willing  to  guarantee  the  pledge.  This  dislike 
may  have  something  to  do  with  the  uniform  brevity 
of  his  skeletons. 

"  I  have  never  asked  Mr.  Beecher,  but  I  have  never 
seen  anything  that  would  lead  me  to  suppose  that  he 
was  at  all  guilty  of  studying  after  the  manner  of  min- 
isters in  general,  and  yet,  in  his  way,  I  suppose  him 
to  be  always  studying,  reading  much,  seeing  much, 
hearing  more,  always  and  in  all  things  a  digger  for  facts, 
truths,  illustrations,  which  are  stored  away,  and  so 
registered  as  to  be  ever  available.  No  memory  is  more 
miserable  than  his  in  many  directions,  so  that  ordinary 
arrangements  or  appointments  are  quite  nnreliable  un- 
less written  doAvn  and  some  one  made  responsible  as 
prompter.  In  other  directions  it  would  seem  as  if  the 
things  he  needed  were  produced  as  if  to  order  on  all 
occasions.  In  sj)eaking  he  is  never  hesitant,  except 
when  the  appearance  is  as  if  the  provision  was  too 
abundant  for  the  speaker's  easy  selection.  Often  it  is 
quite  apparent  that  when  about  to  illustrate  a  point  so 
many  illustrations  clamor  for  use  as  to  be  a  perplexity. 

' '  Idleness  is  as  much  a  straiiger  in  Mr.  Beecher' s  brain 
as  perhaps  in  that  of  any  man's  living.  As  much  in 
recreation  as  at  any  time  accumulation  is  going  on. 
Many  of  the  best  sermons  doubtless  that  Mr.  Beecher 
has  ever  preached  have  been  woven  warp  and  woof  from 
material  gathered  from  the  subsoiled  furrow,  the 
broadcasted  seed,  the  growing  and  ripened  grain,  the 
fruits  and  flowers,  forest  and  meadow,  mountain  and 
stream,  trees  and  birds,  flocks  and  herds,  highways 
and  hedges.      The  special  or .  mechanical  preparation 


NEVER  PREACHES  A  POOR  SERMON.  81 

for  the  pulpit  is  made  only  immediately  preceding  the 
appointed  time  for  service.  This  is  true  not  only  of 
sermons  at  home  but  of  special  discourses.  On  one 
occasion  when  he  was  to  preach  a  dedication  sermon 
he  arrived  rather  late  at  the  minister' s  house ;  after 
supper,  and  but  a  brief  time  before  the  service,  he 
prepared  his  notes  on  the  margin  of  a  newspaper  in 
tifteen  or  twenty  minutes,  preaching  from  them,  as 
was  represented  to  me,  a  sermon  that  held  the  almost 
breathless  attention  of  the  congregation  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  close,  occupying  more  than  an  hour  in 
delivery. 

' '  I  am  sometimes  asked  if  Mr.  Beecher  never  preaches 
any  poor  sermons.  My  answer  is  I  have  four  classifi- 
cations for  his  sermons.  First :  poor  ;  for  Mtti  very 
poor,  but  the  opportunity  seldom  occurs  to  accuse  him 
of  preaching  one  of  this  variety.  Second  :  he  preaches 
a  few  that  could  be  called  for  him  no  more  than  good 
ones.  Third :  much  the  larger  part  of  his  sermons 
are  truly  excellent  and  satisfying,  and  though  absorb- 
ing from  an  hour  to  an  hour  and  fifteen  minutes,  or 
even  more,  people  are  not  often  discovered  looking  at 
the  clock.  Fourth :  not  infrequently  a  sermon  is 
preached  that  is  marvellous  in  power  and  eloquence,  in 
which  preacher  and  people  are  carried  up  heavenward 
together.  Such  was  the  character  of  a  sermon  which 
he  preached  one  Sunday  evening  some  eight  or  nine 
years  since,  on  a  passage  in  the  8th  chapter  of  Romans. 
It  seemed  to  me  and  to  others  as  well  as  if  Mr. 
Beecher  had  been  given  a  new  dispensation,  that  addi- 
tional visions  of  the  glory  and  goodness  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ  were  vouchsafed  to  him  ;  so  that  to  say 


82  HENEY   WARD   BEECHER. 

the  congregation  were  electrified  seems  very  tame. 
For  my  own  part,  I  found  no  time  to  attempt  to  de- 
termine whether  I  was  in  the  body  or  out  of  it. 
When  the  service  closed  I  had  the  desire  to  have  the 
opportunity  to  lay  hands  on  some  calm,  self-possessed, 
thoroughly  good  judge  of  preaching,  that  I  might  de- 
termine how  much  my  judgment  was  affected  by  ex- 
citement and  partiality.  Looking  over  the  house  I  saw 
Professor  Stowe  standing  in  the  pastor's  pew.  Has- 
tening to  him  I  said  :  '  Professor,  what  about  that  ser- 
mon \ '  Very  deliberately  he  answered,  '  The  first  half 
of  it  was  the  most  wonderful  thing  I  ever  listened  to  ; 
but  the  thing  that  is  most  wonderful  to  me  is  how  he 
prepared  it.  After  dinner  this  noon,  I  was  walking  in 
the  library,  and  when  he  came  up  I  said,  "Henry,  I 
would  like  to  have  you  preach  from  those  words  some 
time,"  to  which  he  immediately  responded,  "Mayas 
well  preach  from  them  to-night  as  any  time."  '  He 
went  to  his  afternoon  sleep,  came  down  toward  six 
o'  clock,  took  a  cup  of  tea,  went  into  his  study,  and  made 
the  preparation  from  which  he  preached  this  sermon. 
This  sermon  I  of  course  place  in  the  fourth  class,  and 
would  as  soon  think  of  attempting  to  describe  Niagara 
as  to  describe  it,  or  its  effects  upon  myself  or  others. 
I  was  very  glad  to  have  Professor  Stowe  speak  as 
emphatically  as  he  did.  I  think  that  in  the  fifteen 
years  that  I  have  heard  Mr.  Beecher  preach  I  have 
never  heard  a  sermon  from  him  that  in  any  respect  ex- 
celled this  one,  prepared  in  less  than  two  hours. 

"  Mr.  Beecher  places  no  value  upon  a  manuscript, 
and  after  being  used  it  may  be  obtained  for  the  ask- 
ing.    His  sermons  are  never  repeated.     I  do  not  be- 


FACILITY  OF  PREPARATION.  83 

lieve  Mr.  Beeclier  could  preach  a  sermon  the  second 
time  so  that  those  who  heard  it  first  would  recognize  it. 
He  has  a  sort  of  contemj^t  or  disgust  for  what  he  has 
written  or  used.  When  it  was  first  proposed  to  issue 
his  sermons  in  volumes  the  understanding  was  that 
he  should  revise  those  that  should  be  selected  and 
prej)ared  by  the  gentleman  who  was  to  edit  them. 
I  heard  him  say  that  when  the  first  was  sent  to  him 
at  the  farm,  reading  a  little  while  he  was  so  disgusted 
with  it  that  he  went  to  the  window,  gave  it  a  kick, 
sat  down  and  wrote  the  editor  if  he  had  not  preached 
anything  better  worth  publishing  than  that,  not  to 
send  him  any  more,  and  added,  'I  am  never  so  re- 
minded of  the  dog  returning  to  its  vomit,  and  the  sow 
to  her  wallowing  in  the  mire,  as  when  I  undertake  to 
look  at  what  I  have  written  or  preached.'  Ordinarily 
in  preaching  very  little  attention  is  given  to  the  notes 
or  memoranda.  Many  times  I  have  known  them  not 
to  be  looked  at  once  from  beginning  to  end.  Some- 
times he  appears  to  be  reading  for  several  minutes, 
and  it  is  always  with  deliberation,  and  the  statement 
of  some  particularly  important  point,  and  his  eyes  are 
not  raised  until  the  statement  is  completed.  But  all 
this  time  he  is  not  reading,  as  I  have  ascertained  again 
and  again  from  his  manuscripts,  there  being  nothing 
written  that  would  occupy  a  half  minute  in  reading. 

"  The  readiness  of  his  facility  of  preparation  is  just 
as  manifest  in  addresses  on  special  occasions  as  in  his 
own  i)ulpit.  He  was  requested  to  make  an  address  at 
the  anniversary  of  the  American  Missionary  Association 
In  the  autumn  of  1873.  The  services  were  held  in  the 
Congregational  Church,  Newark,  of  which  Dr.  Wm.  B. 
6 


84  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER, 

Brown  was  the  pastor.  Sitting  in  the  pew  Mr.  Beecher 
listened  perhaps  twenty  minutes  to  the  proceedings, 
then  covering  his  eyes  with  his  hand  for  some  two 
minutes,  he  took  up  one  of  the  programmes  and  wrote 
on  a  blank  leaf  in  pencil  the  following  memoranda : 

"  '  I.  Missionary  work — highest  of  all  or  disinterested 
work. 
"'II.  Of  all  great  work  going  on  now — this  seems 
least — and  for  its  lack  of  interest — the  high- 
est power.     1  Cor.  over  again. 
"  'III.  These  men  must  he  educated. 

1.  For  their  sake. 

2.  Liberty  without  education  a  curse. 

3.  For  our  own. 

*''IV.  America.     God's  test  of  Christianity.' 

' '  The  above  is  an  exact  copy  of  what  he  took  into  the 
pulpit,  and  which  he  threw  in  my  lap  when  he  came 
down,  saying,  '  There's  my  sermon. '  In  the  account 
of  the  proceedings  published  in  the  Society' s  magazine 
for  December  is  this  allusion  to  the  address  : 

"  '  The  speech  of  Mr.  Beecher,  in  which  many  of  his 
friends  thought  he  surpassed  himself,  was  so  far  ex- 
tempore that  the  notes  for  it  were  written  after  he 
entered  the  church,  on  the  blank  leaf  of  an  "  Order  of 
Exercises,"  which  he  found  in  the  seat.  We  exceed- 
ingly regret  that  no  full  report  was  taken  of  it,  for  it 
deserved  a  larger  audience  than  that  which  listened  to 
it — large  as  that  was.'  " 

II.  But  rapid  and  brief  as  is  Mr.  Beecher' s  for- 
mal preparation,  he  rarely,  if  ever,  speaks  on  any 
subject  unless  he  has  made  thorough  study  of  it,  a 


A    Family    of    Clergymen. 


NEVER  PREACHES  A  SERMON  NOT  RIPE.  87 

study  often  extending  over  months  and  years.  It  is 
a  mistake  to  suppose,  as  many  do,  that  he  speaks  with- 
out preparation,  because  there  are  occasions  when  his 
oratory  is  the  ]product  of  a  sudden  inspiration. 

Mr.  Beecher  is  conscientious  above  most  men,  not 
to  speak  on  any  subject  unless  he  is  familiar  with 
it,  nor  unless  he  has  a  clear  conception  in  mind  of 
what  he  is  going  to  say,  and  why  he  is  going  to  say 
it.  The  preparation  thus  made,  Mr.  Beecher  broods 
his  sermon.  He  rarely  or  never  preaches  a  sermon 
that  is  not  ripe.  He  rarely  or  never  breaks  the  shell 
before  the  bu-d  is  ready  to  come  out.  His  sermons  are 
never  addled  eggs.  On  his  study-table  there  lies,  or 
used  to,  a  little  note-book  with  flexible  covers  about  the 
size  of  a  sheet  of  commercial  note-paper.  It  is  full  of 
sketches  of  sermons,  hints,  subjects,  themes,  with  occa- 
sionally a  fully  drawn  out  skeleton.  His  pocket  is 
generally  hall  full  of  letters,  and  on  the  back  of  from 
one  to  half  a  dozen  of  these,  thoughts  for  sermons  are 
jotted  down  as  they  strike  him  in  the  cars,  the  hotel, 
the  steamboat.  And  there  they  wait  till,  revolved  over 
and  over  in  his  fertile  brain  at  all  odd  moments,  they 
have  drawn  to  themselves  juice  from  much  thinking  and 
are  ripe  and  mellow,  and  ready  to  be  plucked  and  pre- 
sented. 

Several  years  ago  he  was  to  preach  an  ordination 
sermon  in  New  England.  I  was  then  carrying  Harper's 
edition  of  Mr.  Beecher' s  sermons  through  the  press, 
and  meeting  Mr.  Beecher  on  the  street,  he  said, 
"I  think  I  shall  preach  a  sermon  at  's  ordi- 
nation which  you  had  better  look  at,  on  pulpit  dynam- 
ics— that  is,  on  the  origin  of  pulpit  power,  and  the 


88  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

methods  of  pulpit  ministration."  When  the  sermon 
came  ont  it  proved  to  be  a  description  of  the  advantages 
and  happinesses  incidental  to  the  ministry  as  a  pro- 
fession. The  next  time  I  met  him  I  asked  for  an  ex- 
planation. "Where  is  that  sermon  on  pulpit  dynam- 
ics?" said  I.  "Oh,  it  wasn't  ripe,"  he  replied;  "I 
shall  get  something  out  of  it  yet,  however."  And  he 
has  ;  has  got  out  of  it  what  seems  to  us  one  of  the  best 
pieces  of  work  of  his  life,  the  ' '  Yale  Lectures  on 
Preaching. ' '  Thus  he  rarely  goes  into  the  pulpit  or 
on  the  platform  with  crude  or  unfonned  thoughts. 
During  the  week,  two  or  three  topics  lie  in  his  mind  as 
those  from  which  he  will,  most  probably,  select  his  next 
Sabbath's  discourses.  His  thoughts  turn  to  them  ;  his 
eyes  gather  illustration  for  them  ;  his  pencil  some- 
times, though  not  often,  jots  them  down.  The  sermon, 
however,  is  rarely  definitely  outlined  in  his  mind  until 
the  Sabba,th  comes.  Then  after  breakfast  he  goes  into 
his  study,  feels  his  various  themes,  takes  one  that 
seems  ripest,  skeletons  the  outline,  selects  his  text, 
and  makes  his  notes.  But  while  he  does  not  speak  on 
any  subject  until  he  has  thoroughly  familiarized  him- 
self with  it,  he  then  speaks  with  perfect  abandon.  All 
i^  his  caution  is  exercised  in  the  decision  of  the  question 
^  whether  he  will  speak  at  all ;  none  in  the  actual 
speaking. 

III.  Mr.  Beecher  studies  men  as  he  would  liter- 
ature, and  indeed  even  more.  If  he  desires  information 
on  any  subject  he  seeks  men  who  are  eminent  in  the 
different  departments  of  life,  obtains  their  knowledge, 
assimilates  it,  and  reproduces  it  with  the  stamp  of  his 
own  mind  and  personality.     This  familiarity  with  men 


STUDIES  MEN.  89 

in  all  walks  of  life  is  a  chief  element  of  his  success, 
and  thus  one  of  the  first  conditions  of  his  work  in  the 
pulpit  or  on  the  platform  is  a  knowledge  of  his 
audience. 

When  he  first  visited  England  during  the  Civil  War, 
he  was  besought  to  speak,  but  he  persistently  declined  ; 
waited,   during  his  travels,  first  in  England,  then  on 
the  continent ;  studied  the  English  temper  ;    studied 
the  needs  and  sentiments  of  each  separate  locality; 
and  then  prepared  for  his  campaign.      Another  man 
would  have  spent  the  time  in  writing  one  oration  ;  he 
spent  it  in  unconsciously  studying  his  audiences,  so 
that  when  he  came  to  his  work,  he  made  no  two 
speeches  alike,  and  adapted  each  one  with  marvellous 
slvill  to  the  particular  locality  where  it  was  uttered. 
It  is  thus  that  the  study  of  human  nature  is  not  only 
an  integral  part  but  an  essential  part  of  his  preparation 
for  the  pulpit.     As  a  sharp-shooter  studies  his  mark, 
Mr.  Beecher  studies  his  man.     Some  one  in  prayer- 
meeting  alluding  to  one  of  his  sermons  and  its  effect, 
referred  to  the  arrow  shot  at  a  venture.     "I  never 
shoot  at  a  venture,"  said  Mr.  Beecher;    "I  always 
aim,  though  I  often  miss  my  mark  and  bring  down 
unexpected  game."     When  Mr.  Beecher  was  about  to 
deliver  his  famous  course  of  lectures  to  young  men 
in   Indianapolis,   which  was   then   a   great  gambling 
centre,  he  succeeded  in  getting  one  of  the  gambling 
fraternity,  and  a  leader  among  them,  to  visit  his  study. 
They  spent  the  morning  together,  and  the  result  was 
a   sermon   on   gambling,    the   character   of   which   is 
indicated  by  the  following  incident.     A  few  evenings 
after  its  delivery,  Mr.  Beecher  met  a  young  man  at 


90  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

an  evening  party,  who  thought  to  crack  a  joke  at  the 
expense  of  the  preacher.  "How  could  you  describe 
a  gambling-saloon  so  accurately,"  said  the  young  man, 
"if  you  have  never  been  there  ?"  "  How  do  you  know 
it  is  accurate,  if  you  have  never  been  there?"  re- 
plied Mr.  Beecher.  Rev.  Wm.  M.  Taylor  says  :  ' '  Those 
who  know  him  best  say  that  he  studies  his  sermons  in 
the  shops  and  stores,  in  the  streets,  and  in  the  ferry- 
boats ;  and  we  believe  it,  for  they  are  like  the  produc- 
tions of  a  man  who  has  gone  through  the  city  with  his 
eyes  open.  They  seem  to  have  been  struck  out  of  him, 
if  we  may  use  such  an  expression,  by  the  sights  he 
sees  and  the  sounds  he  hears  in  the  midst  of  that 
whirling  tide  of  human  life  that  bubbles  and  seethes 
and  hisses  and  roars  around  him;  and  his  purpose  by 
them  is  to  descend  into  its  depths  and  bring  up "  thence 
the  souls  of  struggling  men,  to  him  more  precious  far 
than  the  silver  cup  or  glittering  pearl  in  the  diver's 
eye." 


CHAPTER  V. 

MR.    BEECHER'S   theology. 

In  speaking  of  Mr.  Beecher's  theology,  it  miglit  seem 
to  be  suflScient  to  i^rint  simply  some  one  of  the  several 
sermons  wMch  he  has  preached  and  published,  in  the 
course  of  his  lifetime,  defining  his  theological  position. 
But  it  is  always  possible  for  the  critic  to  assert  that 
these  sermons  do  not  really  embody  the  spirit  and  drift 
of  his  teaching  ;  that,  intentionally  or  unintentionally, 
they  are  more  conservative  than  the  general  course  of 
his  instructions.  It  is  indeed  not  uncommon  for  j)ublic 
men  to  retreat,  or  at  least  to  j)rovide  a  way  of  retreat, 
from  positions  taken  in  a  moment  of  impulsive  frank- 
ness, and  which  they  find  too  far  in  advance  for 
permanent  occupancy.  This  is  very  common  among 
political  orators  and  it  is  not  unloiown  in  the  pulpit. 
Instead,  therefore,  of  referring  the  reader  to  any  of 
these  general  and  comprehensive  statements  prepared 
and  published  by  Mr.  Beecher  himself,  I  undertake 
the  more  difficult  task  of  indicating  Mr.  Beecher's 
general  theological  position  as  exhibited  in  the  whole 
course  of  his  public  ministry.  In  doing  this  I  confine 
myself  to  no  one  epoch ;  the  quotations  from  various 
utterances,  ranging  through  a  third  of  a  century,  show 
what  is  certainly  the  case,  that  with  changes  of  opinion 
respecting  particular  formulas,  there  has  been  a  steady 


92  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

increase  of  spiritual  faitli,  and  an  undiminislied  hold 
lipon  tlie  great  central  truths  of  the  Gospel  as  held  by 
the  great  body  of  Evangelical  teachers.  That  this  is  his 
own  belief  respecting  himself  is  very  certain  from  a 
comx)aratively  recent  sermon  on  Religious  Doubt. '^ 

"There  have  been  things  which  I  supposed  were  true, 
but  which  year  by  year,  as  I  learned  what  they  were, 
and  understood  their  measure  and  their  worth,  I  have 
dropped  one  after  another  ;  and  yet  the  change  has  been, 
not  in  the  direction  of  loss,  but  in  the  direction  of  gain. 
I  differ  from  most  of  my  brethren  in  the  ministry  who 
suspect  my  orthodoxy,  not  in  that  I  have  abandoned 
so  much,  but  in  that  I  have  taken  on  so  much." 

Not  only  Mr.  Beecher's  methods  of  expression  are 
peculiar  to  himself,  but  his  system  of  j)hilosophy  is 
also  his  own.  And  while  isolated  paragraphs  taken 
from  their  connection  might  naturally  enough  seem  to 
put  him  in  antagonism  to  the  Evangelical  churches  on 
some  important  points,  any  candid  and  comprehensive 
survey  of  his  published  sermons  abundantly  justifies 
his  own  declaration,  that  ' '  for  twenty-five  years,  in 
newspapers,  in  x^rinted  volumes,  as  well  as  from  the 
pulpit,  I  have  preached  and  printed,  in  every  conceiv- 
able form,  the  truth  of  the  inspiration  of  the  sacred 
Scripture,  the  existence  and  government  of  God,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  the  divinity  of  Christ  as  very 
God,  the  universal  sinfulness  of  man,  the  atonement 
of  Christ,  the  doctrine  of  a  change  of  heart,  the  effi- 
cacious influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  regeneration, 

*  Sermon  preached  in  Plymouth  Church,  Dec.  19th,  1880  ;  published 
in  Christian  Union,  Jan.  4th,  1881. 


NOT   INDIFFERENT   TO   CREEDS.  93 

and  tlie  doctrine  of  retribution,  both,  here  and  here- 
after."* 

Nor  is  it  true,  as  often  asserted,  that  Mr.  Beecher  is 
indifferent  respecting  belief,  or  hostile  to  creeds.  His 
preaching  has  always  been  essentially  doctrinal,  em- 
phatically so  during  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years.  He 
has  again  and  again  presented  his  own  theological 
views  in  systematic  form,  the  latest  of  these  statements 
being  a  sermon  entitled  "A  Statement  of  Belief," 
preached  July  11th,  1880,  published  in  the  Christian 
Union  for  July  14th,  1880,  and  afterward  reprinted  in 
tract  form.f  He  has  repeatedly  emphasized  in  sermons 
the  importance  of  clear  and  careful  thinking  and  of 
definite  and  positive  belief.  This  is  accompanied,  how- 
ever, with  a  very  emphatic  and  positive  declaration 
that  Christian  faith  is  more  than  orthodox  belief ;  that 
men  may  be  either  better  or  worse  than  their  creed ; 
that  Z//(g,  not  oyinion,  is  the  test  of  Christian  experi- 
ence ;  that  if  a  man  lives  like  a  Christian  he  is  to  be 
recognized  as  a  Christian  without  regard  to  the  church 
or  the  creed  to  which  he  belongs ;  that  a  great  many 
of  the  questions  about  which  theologians  have  quar- 


*  From  a  letter  by  Mr.  Beecher  to  Eev.  Mr.  Morrison,  editor  of  the 
Presbyterian  Weekly,  written  in  reply  to  one  asking  for  information  re- 
specting his  theological  views>.  The  letter  bears  date  January  8th, 
1878. 

f  Since  this  chapter  was  put  in  type  Mr.  Beecher,  in  withdrawing  from 
the  New  York  and  Brooklyn  Association  of  Congregational  Ministers, 
has  made  a  statement  of  his  theological  opinions  which  is  reprinted  in 
the  closing  pages  of  this  book.  This  chapter  remains  unaltered,  and 
thus  the  reader  can  judge  for  himself  how  far  this  general  summary  and 
Mr.  Beecher's  special  statement  of  his  views  agree. 


S4  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

relied  are  questions  about  wMcli  they  are  wholly  igno- 
rant, while  concerning  others  belief  is  relatively  unim- 
portant, because  it  produces  no  apjDreciable  influence 
on  character  or  conduct.  But  with  these  qualifications 
or  limitations,  if  such  they  be,  he  lays  great  emphasis 
upon  correctness  of  belief.  A  single  quotation  will 
suffice  to  represent  his  position  on  this  subject. 

"It  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world  what  you 
believe  in  respect  to  those  truths  that  are  connected 
with  godliness,  with  purity  of  thought,  purity  of  mo- 
tive, purity  of  disposition.  You  must  believe  right  about 
them.  About  those  truths  that  are  related  to  the  ordi- 
nances of  the  Church  ;  to  the  framework  of  the  Church  ; 
to  the  question  as  to  whether  the  ministry  are  suc- 
cessors of  the  apostles,  or  whether  each  one  receives  his 
commission  direct  from  the  Spirit  of  God  in  his  heart — 
about  those  truths  you  may  believe  either  way.  You 
may  believe  that  the  Episcopal,  the  Methodist,  the 
Baptist,  the  Congregational,  or  the  Presbyterian  Church 
'Is  the  true  Church  ;  you  may  believe  that  the  Sabbath 
should  be  observed  in  this  or  in  that  way— you  may 
believe  any  of  these  things,  and  be  a  good  man.  But 
with  reference  to  the  truths  that  are  related  to  the 
character  of  man  as  a  sinner  having  need  of  a  spiritual 
change  ;  with  reference  to  the  truths  that  stand  related 
to  man's  responsibility  to  God^  and  to  the  government 
of  God  ;  with  reference  to  the  truths  that  relate  to 
your  immortality — with  reference  to  all  these  great, 
vital,  experimental  truths  of  the  Bible,  if  you  believe 
at  all,  you  must  believe  right,  or  woe  be  upon  you ! 
There  is  a  right  way  and  a  wrong  way  of  believing  in 
respect  to  them.     The  wrong  way  leads  to  disaster,  and 


RIGHT   BELIEFS    IMPORTANT.  95 

the  right  way  to  benefit.  Although  with  regard  to 
ordinances,  and  creed-forms,  and  usages,  it  does  not 
matter  much  how  a  man  believes,  yet  with  regard  to 
those  truths  that  relate  to  his  immortal  well-being  it  is 
very  imjDortant  how  he  believes."  * 

This  view  underlies  all  of  Mr.  Beecher's  methods  of 
presentation   of  theological  truths.      He  believes  that 
right  belief  is  important,  and  that  it  should  be  accurate, 
careful,  and  well  defined,  but  he  believes  also  that  it 
should   be  practical,    that   religion  should  be    not  a 
theoretical  but  an  applied  science.      From  many  itera- 
tions of  this  view  I  select  one  only,  nttered  twelve  years 
later  than  the  one  quoted  above:     "Now  I  tell  you 
that  in  religious  matters  it  is  in  the  ratio  of  right-know- 
ing that  a  man  is  likely  to  be  a  right-minded  man.    The 
knowledge  does  not  need  to  be  of  an  abstract  form  ; 
practical  knowing  may  take  the  place  of  philosophical 
knowing ;  but   to   think,   to   think  rightly,   to  think 
sharply  and  definitely,  and  to  link  thoughts  with  each 
other,  is  indispensable.      Right-thinking,    sedulously" 
carried  forward  to    mark  out  the  path   of  life    and 
character,    is  important.      And  he  who   teaches    the 
young  that  they  must  scorn  the  idea  of  jDrecise  beliefs, 
and  that  the  better  way  is  to  come  up  generally,  is  a 
traitor  to  the  young.     Every  school,  every  academy, 
every  college,  every  university,  and  every  dei^artment 
in  them,  is  a  protest  against  this  notion  of  mere  loose, 
vague,  indifi'erent  thinking.  Object  to  this  system  if  you 
please ;  object  to  that  system  if  you  please  ;  object  to 


*  Sermon  preached  in  Plymouth  Church.  Sabbath  morning,  Oct.  6th, 
1861.     Harper's  edition,  vol.  ii.,  p.  297. 


96  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

abstract  forms  if  you  please  ;  make  as  many  criticisms 
about  proportions  as  you  please ;  but  the  great  fact 
that  men  need  to  believe  accurately,  and  that  their 
beliefs  are  the  foundations  on  which  they  build,  is  of 
transcendent  importance."  * 

A  broad  gulf  separates  the  Rationalistic  and  the 
Evangelical  schools  of  thought.  Evangelical  faith  re- 
gards man  as  not  merely  an  imj^erf ectly  developed  being, 
but  also  as  sinful  and  guilty  before  God,  and  needing 
divine  forgiveness  and  a  new  and  divine  impulse  in 
order  to  enter  upon  a  true  and  godly  life.  It  believes 
that  this  divine  forgiveness  is  disclosed  and  assured  to 
man  through  the  Bible  and  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ.  It  believes  that  in  Jesus  Christ  there  has  been 
made  a  manifestation  to  man,  not  merely  of  the  character 
and  attributes,  but  of  the  very  person  and  being  of  God 
Himself,  so  that  man  need  no  longer  grope  like  an 
orphan  after  an  unknown  Father.  It  believes  that  this 
God  perpetually  vouchsafes  His  presence  and  His 
power  to  His  children,  inspiring  and  guiding  them  in 
their  endeavor  after  a  divine  life,  and  it  teaches  their 
accountability  to  Him,  not  merely  for  their  moral  con- 
duct in  daily  life  one  toward. another,  but  for  their  ac- 
ceptance or  rejection  of  that  aid  which  He  proffers 
them  and  that  life  to  which  He  invites  them.  To  one 
who  thus  holds  the  helplessness  of  man  left  to  him- 
self and  the  helpfulness  of  God  vouchsafed  to  him, 
it  is  very  easy  to  believe  that  this  helpfulness  has  been 
disclosed  in  a  written  or  spoken  revelation,  in  an  in- 


*  Preached   in  Plymouth   Church,  June,  1873  ;   printed  in  Plymouth 
Pulpit,  tenth  series,  page  304. 


HIS   BELIEF.  97 

carnate  manifestation,  in  a  divine   providence,   in   a 
spiritual  experience  given  in  answer  to  prayer,  and  in 
miracles  afforded  as  the  seal,  or  witness,  or  evidence 
authenticating  the  revelation  and  manifestation.      In 
other  words,  the  doctrines  of  Atonement,  Incarnation, 
Regeneration,  Inspiration,  and  Prayer  all  centre  around 
and  grow  naturally  out  of  the  fundamental  belief  that 
man  is  helpless  in  his  sin,  and  that  God  is  a  helpful 
and  a  saving  God.      Now  while  it  is  true  that   Mr... 
Beecher  differs  from  most  of  his  Evangelical  brethren 
in  his  philosophical  interpretation  of  some  of  these  doc- 
trines, notably  the  doctrines  of  Inspiration,  Atonement 
and  Incarnation,  it  is  certain  that  he  is  emphatically 
and  distinctively  Evangelical  in  the  general  structure  of 
his  mind  and  his  teaching,  that  he  lays  more  emphasis 
even  than  most  ministers. on  the  actual  and  active  help- 
fulness  of  God  toward  men,  and  the  helplessness  of 
men  without  God. 

1.  He  maintains  and  emphasizes  the  distinction 
between  inspiration  and  revelation.  Eevelation  he  re- 
gards as  exceptional  and  episodical.  The  Bible  is  a 
book  which  contains  matter  revealed  by  the  Spirit  of 
God  to  men  selected  to  receive  and  communicate  the 
revelation.  Inspiration,  on  the  other  hand,  he  holds  to 
be  not  an  exceptional  or  episodical  phenomenon. 

"  I  believe,"  he  says,*  "  that  God  in  every  age  and 
in  all  nations  has  moved  upon  the  hearts  of  men  by 
His  Holy  Spirit,  inspiring  them  to  whatever  is  true, 
pure  and  noble.     I  believe  that  the  Scriptures,  the  Old 


*  Sermon  preached  in  Plymouth  Church,  Sunday  morning,  July  11th, 
1880.     Christian  Union,  July  14th,  1880. 


98  HE^^RY    WARD   BEECHER. 

Testament  and  the  New,  contain  the  fruit  of  that  in- 
spiration as  it  was  develoj^ed  in  the  Hebrew  nation,  and 
I  fully  and  heartily  accej^t  the  Bible  according  to  the 
apostolic  and  only  declaration  of  divine  inspiration : 
All  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and  is 
profitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  in- 
struction in  righteousness,  that  the  man  of  God  may  be 
perfect,  thoroughly  furnished  unto  all  good  works. ' '  He 
holds  that  there  are  different  degrees  of  inspiration  in 
different  books  of  the  Bible;  "that  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  Christ  are  of  larger  scope  and  of  more  value  than 
the  teachings  of  Moses ;  the  narratives  of  the  Gospels 
are  more  valuable  than  the  history  of  Ruth  and  Esther, 
^^  beautiful  as  these  are."  He  does  not  believe  that  the 
Scripture  is  a  guide  to  scientific  knowledge,  and  he  re- 
jects and  repudiates  vdth  great  vigor  the  notion  of  ver- 
bal inspiration,  and  even  of  plenary  inspiration  in  the 
full  and  proper  sense  of  that  tenn.  He  regards  the 
Book  as  inspired  for  moral  and  spiritual  purposes 
and  to  be  measured  only  by  its  moral  and  spiritual 
uses.     He  says  : 

"The  Bible  is  a  practical  book,  set  up  for  the 
guidance  of  life.  If  you  have  seen  old  charts  you  have 
noticed  strange  forms,  all  sorts  of  animals,  represented 
in  them  ;  you  have  seen  grotesque  ornaments  around 
about  them  ;  and  yet  in  the  middle  there  was  the 
ocean  ;  and  there  were,  I  had  almost  said,  some  of  the 
great  landmarks  of  the  sea  by  which  the  sailors  steered  ; 
and  the  charts  were  good  in  spite  of  all  the  curious  and 
vain  imaginings  that  had  been  described  around  their 
borders,  or  stuck  here  and  there  into  them.  Now  in 
this  chart  of  life,  the  word  of  God,  the  current  is  clear 


THE  BIBLE   THE  GUIDE.  99 

and  the  channel  is  obvious.  There  never  was  a  man  in 
the  world  that  wanted  to  live  right,  and  to  be  a  better 
man,  who  could  not  find  out  from  the  Bible  how  to  do 
it.  It  is  a  guide  to  right  living.  That  is  all  that  it 
professes  to  be.  It  does  not  undertake  to  open  the 
whole  of  divinity ;  it  simply  undertakes  to  give  a 
glimpse  of  it.  It  does  not  undertake  to  unpack,  and 
develop,  and  analyze,  and  lay  out  before  us  all  the 
mighty  volume  of  the  unsearchable  God — it  would  be 
preposterous  folly  to  claim  that  it  could  do  such  a 
thing  ;  it  undertakes  to  teach  men  in  this  immoral  and 
tempting  world  how  to  live  better  and  better,  to  rise 
higher  and  higher,  until  by  and  by  they  are  prepared 
by  the  earthly  life  to  unite  themselves  with  God."  * 

2.  He  disowns  the  doctrine  of  original  sin,  and  denies 
any  moral  connection  between  Adam's  fall  and  individ- 
ual sinfulness.    Indeed  he  denies  the  doctrine  of  the  fall 
altogether,  regarding  the  story  of  the  Garden  of  Eden 
as  an  allegory  or  parabolic  poem,  valuable  for  its  spirit- 
ual lessons,  but  not  for  its  ethnology  or  its  history.    He 
holds  that  the  human  race  began  in  a  low-down  con- 
dition, or,  at  all  events,  that  as  far  back  as  we  can  histori-    \ 
cally  trace  the  race,  it  is  found  to  be  more  imperfect  in  / 
moral  and  spiritual  as  well  as  intellectual  elements  ;  that    ") 
as  out  of  the  babe  the  man  is  developed,  so  out  of  the    \ 
race  in  its  infantile  condition  the  race  in  its  manhood  is      , 
to  be  developed.    Scientifically,  he  accepts  in  the  main     ' 
the  hypothesis  of  Darwin  concerning  the  origin  of  the 
human  race — that  is,  that  it  was  developed  from  lower 

*  Preached   in   Plymonth    Church,  Dec.   19th,    1880.      Published   in 
Christian  Union  of  Jan.  5th,  1881. 


100  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

animal  forms.  Theologically,  he  may  be  described  as  a 
Christian  evolutionist.  This  has  been  his  view  for 
many  years,  though  declared,  perhaps,  in  later  years 
with  increasing  clearness.*  As  far  back  as  1861  he 
said: 

"  There  has  been,  from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  a 
steady  evolution  from  the  seminal  point  in  individuals 
and  races.  Childhood  has  developed  into  manhood. 
There  has  been  going  on,  since  the  world  began,  a  con- 
tiuous  education  in  physical  skill,  in  intellectual  en- 
dowments, in  energy,  and  in  ethical  qualities.  And 
revelation  teaches  us  that  this  fourfold,  complicated 
education  is  going  on,  not  only  for  time,  but  for  eter- 
nity." f- 

This  education  he  believes  is  being  carried  on  under 
the  direction  of  ' '  One  who  sits  in  Heaven  and  controls 
the  elements  of  our  being,  and  holds  in  his  hands  the 
threads  of  our  destiny  for  time  and  for  eternity."  Nor 
has  he  in  the  least  modified  his  faith  that  this  process 
of  development  is  carried  on  under  the  direct  and  im- 
mediate contact  of  the  Spirit  of  Grod.  If  his  interpre- 
tation of  experience  and  history  as  an  evolution  is 
clearer,  so  also  is  his  recognition  of  God  as  the  inspir- 
ing and  controlling  Master  of  the  great  current  of 
human  life.     He  thus  defines  this  belief  in  1881 : 

*  Since  this  chapter  was  in  type  he  has  declared  his  general  belief  in 
evolution,  and  his  rejection  of  the  doctrine  of  the  fall  in  an  article  in 
the  North  American  Review,  which  created  no  little  stir  by  the  boldness 
of  its  indictment  of  the  Westminster  Catechism  as  embodying  false  and 
degrading  conceptions  of  the  Divine  character. 

f  Sermon  preached  in  Plymouth  Church,  Fall  of  1861.  Harper's 
edition,  vol.  ii.,  p.  123. 


EDUCATION  NOT   THE   ONLY  NEED.  101 

"I  confess  that  while  in  regard  to  the  under  king- 
dom of  the  world,  the  vegetable  kingdom,  I  stand 
where  I  suppose  every  intelligent  and  well-read  man  of 
to-day  stands  ;  yet  when  I  consider  the  theory  of  devel- 
opment, and  the  substantial  nature  of  the  moral  or 
religious  feeling  in  man,  I  do  not  see  any  way  in  which 
that  could  have  been  unfolded  without  the  direct  inter- 
position aud  guiding  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
Himself.  That  God  established  that  as  the  point  to- 
ward which  humanity  should  steer,  and  then  left  the 
winds  and  the  currents  to  waft  men  in  that  direction — 
the  reason  of  men,  the  ingenuity  of  men,  and  the  very 
passions  of  men,  restraining  their  wrath,  and  causing 
the  remainder  thereof  to  praise  Him — that  this  has 
been  the  Divine  method  I  think  cannot  be  contradicted  ; 
and  that  is  a  great  deal,"  * 

But  education  even  under  a  Divine  teacher  is  not  the 
only  need  of  the  human  race.  Repudiating  the  theo- 
logical philosophy  which  denies  that  there  is  any  good 
in  the  "natural  virtues,"  holding  up  habitually  for 
commendation  every  good  and  praiseworthy  act,  deny- 
ing in  toto  the  old  theological  assumption,  that  every 
act  of  an  unregenerate  man  is  necessarily  sinful,  stig- 
matizing the  phrase  "total  depravity"  as  one  of  the 
most  unfortunate  and  misleading  terms  that  ever  afiiict- 
ed  theology,  and  as  untrue  as  it  is  unscriptural,  "a  mis- 
chievous phrase,"  "an  unscriptural,  monstrous  and 
unredeemable  lie,"  his  whole  preaching  is  neverthe- 
less founded  upon  his  profound  sense  of  human  sinful- 

*  Preached  in  Plymouth  Church,  Dec.  26th,  1880.  Published  in 
Christian  Union  of  Jan.  12th,  1881. 

7 


102  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

ness.     One  confession  of  his  faith  in  this  regard  may- 
serve  as  a  type  of  many. 

"We  believe,  with  continual  sorrow  of  heart  and 
daily  overflowing  evidence,  in  the  deep  sinfulness  of 
universal  man.  And  we  believe  in  the  exceeding  sin- 
fulness of  sin.  We  do  not  believe  that  any  man  is 
born  who  is  sinless,  or  who  becomes  perfectly  sinless 
until  death.  We  believe  that  there  is  not  one  faculty 
of  the  human  soul  that  does  not  work  evil,  and  so  re- 
peatedly that  the  whole  human  character  is  sinful 
before  God.  We  believe  man's  sinfulness  to  be  such 
that  every  man  that  ever  lived  needed  God's  forbear- 
ance and  forgiveness.  We  believe  that  no  man  lives 
who  does,  not  need  to  repent  of  sin,  to  turn  from  it ; 
and  we  believe  that  turning  from  sin  is  a  work  so  deep 
and  touches  so  closely  the  very  springs  of  being,  that 
no  man  will  ever  change  except  by  the  Kelp  of  God. 
And  we  believe  that  such  help  is  the  direct  and  per- 
sonal out-reaching  of  God's  Spirit  upon  the  human 
soul ;  and  when,  by  such  Divine  help,  men  begin  to 
live  a  spiritual  life,  we  believe  the  change  to  have  been 
so  great  that  it  is  fitly  called  a  beginning  of  life  over 
again,  a  new  creation,  a  new  birth.  If  there  is  one 
thing  that  we  believe  above  all  others,  upon  proof  from 
consciousness  and  proof  from  observation  and  experi- 
ence, it  is  the  sinfulness  of  man.  Nor  do  we  believe 
that  any  man  ever  doubted  our  belief  who  sat  for  two 
months  under  our  preaching.  Nothing  strikes  us  as 
so  peculiarly  absurd  as  a  charge  or  fear  that  we 
do  not  adequately  believe  in  men's  sinfulness.  The 
steady  bearing  of  our  preaching  on  this  subject  is 
such  as  to  plow  up  the  soil  and  subsoil,  and  to  con- 


HUMAN  SINFULNESS.  103 

vict  and  convince  men  of  their  need  of  Clirist's  re- 
demption." * 

Any  fair  examination  of  Mr,  Beecher's  published 
sermons  will  abundantly  justify  the  closing  declaration 
in  the  above  paragraph.  He  has  his  own  peculiar  way 
of  preaching  the  doctrine  of  human  sinfulness.  He 
may  even  be  said  not  to  preach  it  as  a  doctrine,  but  to 
bear  witness  against  men  by  indicting  them  in  the 
court  of  their  own  conscience,  not  only  of  sinfulness  in 
general,  but  of  every  phase  and  form  of  sin,  from  the 
minuter  social  delinquencies  on  which  the  pulpit  rarely 
touches,  to  that  forsaking  of  God  which  is  the  secret 
source  and  cause  of  all  sin. 

3.  Holding  to  this  general  doctrine  of  human  sinful- 
ness, he  holds  to  man's  need  of  "Divine  interposition 
for  correction  and  for  forgiveness."  He  holds  accord- 
ingly to  the  reality  of  that  momentous  change  which 
is  usually  called  conversion  or  regeneration.  "This 
change  does  not  require  violence  to  be  done  to  the 
mental  organization.  A  man  has  the  same  faculties, 
intellectual,  moral,  social  and  animal,  before  conversion 
as  after.  Neither  are  the  constitutional  functions 
changed,  nor  the  laws  of  mind  under  which  all  mental 
life  exists.  The  change  is  analogous  to  that  which 
happens  to  the  thoroughly  and  chronically  diseased 
body  when  it  becomes  decidedly  convalescent."  The 
whole  object  and  purpose  of  his  preaching  is  and  has 
been  twofold,  to  bring  about  this  change  in  men,  and 
to  develop,  enrich  and  educate  them  in  the  Divine  life 
after  once  they  have  been  persuaded  to  enter  upon  it. 

*  Views  and  Experiences  of  Keligious  Subjects,  p.  184; 


104  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

The  formation  of  Christian  dispositions  in  men,  the  de- 
velopment of  Christian  character,  the  beginning  and 
the  nurture  of  a  Divine  life,  the  making  men  godly, 
Christ-like,  the  building  up,  not  of  doctrines  nor  of  a 
church,  but  of  a  Divine  manhood — this  has  been  Mr. 
Beecher's  aim  from  first  to  last ;  and  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  this  aim  his  preaching  has  been  accompanied 
with  frequent  revivals  and  many  conversions.  Empha- 
sizing always  human  instrumentality  in  this  work,  be- 
lieving always  that  God  would  do  His  share  whenever 
men  were  willing  to  do  theirs,  he  has  nevertheless  dis- 
tinctly and  emphatically  taught  that  the  work  is  one 
which  cannot  be  done  by  man  alone,  that  the  produc- 
tion of  the  Divine  character  can  be  accomplished  only 
by  Divine  influence.     He  says  : 

"When  it  is  declared,  that  unless  a  man  is  born 
again  he  shall  not  see  this  new  kingdom,  it  is  simply 
the  declaration  that  a  man,  in  his  animal  being,  or  in 
his  lower,  passional  nature,  never  will  come  into  the 
experience  which  belongs  to  the  purity  of  these  higher 
feelings  ;  that  he  will  never  know  what  is  the  joy,  the 
strength,  the  sympathy,  the  beauty,  the  power  of  this 
higher  life  ;  that  he  will  never  know  what  is  in  him- 
self, nor  what  he  can  do.  God  has  amplitude  in  him  ; 
but  man  does  not  know  what  that  amplitude  is  until 
by  the  Holy  Ghost  the  nobler  elements  of  his  being  are 
developed  and  brought  into  supremacy.  Until  we  are 
bom  of  the  Spirit,  until  that  part  of  us  which  is  in 
sympathy  with  God  is  touched  by  the  Divine  Heart, 
and  we  are  brought  into  communion  with  God,  we 
shall  not  see  nor  know  the  substance  of  that  kingdom 
in  which  God  and  man  dwell  together. 


;  THE  DOCTRINE  OF    THE  ATONEMENT.  105 

' '  This  I  understand  to  be  the  general  enunciation  of 
the  doctrine  of  Chi^ist,  specially  and  personally.  It 
is  trae  in  respect  to  every  one,  as  it  is  true  in  respect 
to  races  and  generations  of  men,  that  he  cannot,  except 
by  the  Divine  contact,  rise  into  this  higher  sphere  of 
life.  N'o  man  can  come  to  himself  except  the  Father 
draw  him.  No  man  can  come  to  God  except  God  lead 
him.  No  man  can  come  to  his  own  highest  nature  ex- 
cept under  the  influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit."  * 

Thus  while  Mr.  Beecher  rarely  uses  the  word  regen- 
eration^ perhaps  scarcely  more  frequently  than  it  is 
used  in  the  New  Testament,  he  has  not  laid  less  stress 
upon  it  than  did  Paul  himself. 

4.  The  same  may  be  said  respecting  the  doctrine  of ' 
the  Atonement.  The  Apostles'  Creed  contains  a  decla- 
ration of  belief  in  the  "forgiveness  of  sins  ;"  but  no 
statement  respecting  the  Atonement,  that  is,  the  method 
provided  for  securing  and  assuring  this  Divine  forgive- 
ness. The  spirit  of  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching  has  been 
somewhat  that  of  the  Apostles'  Creed.  He  has  abun- 
dantly proclaimed  the  forgiveness  of  sins  through  Jesus 
Christ ;  this  and  the  coiTelative  truth,  the  Divinity  of  [  ^ 
Christ,  have  been  indeed  the  central  truths  of  his 
teaching.  This  fact  is  so  universally  recognized  that 
we  need  not  cite  any  illustrations.  Perhaps  for  no  one 
thing  has  Mr.  Beecher  been  so  much  criticised  as  for 
the  emphasis  which  he  has  put  upon  the  tenderness, 
the  compassion,  the  forgiving  kindness  of  God,  which 
his  critics  have  thought  he  preached  out  of  due  pro- 

*  Sermon  preached  in  Plymouth  Church,  Jan.  29th,  1871.    Eeported  in 
Plymouth  Pulpit,  Sixth  Series,  p.  447-8. 


106  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

portion,  to  the  ignoring  of  tlie  Divine  justice  and 
the  punitive  element  in  the  Divine  government.  He 
has  not,  however,  contented  himself  with  merely  pro- 
claiming the  pity  and  mercy  of  God.  This  pity  and 
mercy  which  he  believes  are  inherent  in  the  Divine 
nature,  not  produced,  nor  evoked,  nor  even  made  effica- 
cious and,  so  to  speak,  workable  by  the  death  of 
Christ,  he  nevertheless  teaches  have  both  been  mani- 
fested and  set  in  operation  upon  the  human  race 
through  Christ' s  death.  The  theory  that  it  was  neces- 
sary that  Christ  should  suffer  in  order  to  fulfil,  by  a 
literal  equivalent,  the  threatenings  of  the  law,  or  that 
those  sufferings  and  that  death  were  necessary  to  vin- 
dicate the  justice  of  God  and  make  pardon  safe,  he 
does  not  accept.  His  general  teaching  on  this  subject 
may  be  stated  in  two  propositions  :  first,  that  they  were 
"a  means  of  disclosing  the  atoning  nature  of  God;" 
that  they  "manifested  the  mind  of  God  in  such  a 
way  as  to  cause  it  to  appear  sweet  and  blessed  and 
attractive  forevermore ;"  and  second,  that  the  sufi'er- 
ings  and  death  of  Christ  were  necessary  for  reasons 
known  to  the  Divine  Being,  but  not  made  known 
to  us. 

"The  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  were  not  inci- 
dental. They  were  divinely  ordained.  There  was  not 
only  a  use  in  them,  but  a  necessity  for  them.  Not  alone 
is  this  declared,  but  it  is  the  great  undertone  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  fact  that  man's  salvation  is  through 
faith  in  Christ,  and  that  the  power  of  Christ  to  save 
men  is  connected  with,  or  dependent  on.  His  suffering 
for  them,  cannot  be  taken  away  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment without  abstracting  its  very  life.     It  would  be 


CHRIST   THE  MANIFESTATION   OF   GOD.  107 

]ike  an  organ  without  diapasons.     It  would  have  no 
basis. "  * 

5.  Indissolubly  connected  with  Mr.  Beecher's  preach- 
ing in  connection  with  the  forgiveness  of  sins  is  his 
view  of  Christ  as  the  manifestation  of  God.  It  may  "^ 
be  emphatically  said  that  Mr.  Beecher  has  been  a 
preacher  of  Chiist ;  not  of  theories  about  Him,  but  of 
Christ  Himself  as  a  personal,  living  Saviour.  How  the 
view  of  Christ  as  the  manifestation  and  disclosure  of 
Ood  early  received  by  Mr.  Beecher  permeated  his 
whole  experience  and  transformed  his  whole  character 
has  been  narrated  in  a  previous  chapter.  His  whole 
theological  teaching  has  been  founded  on  and  grown 
out  of  this  experience.  On  this  as  on  other  subjects 
Mr.  Beecher  has  not  expressed  himself  very  frequently 
in  philosophical  or  theological  forms.  He  has,  how- 
ever, very  distinctly  repudiated  the  common  view  of 
Christ's  nature  as  a  composite,  in  which  the  perfect 
God  and  perfect  man  are  inexplicably  united.  ' '  The 
Bible,"  he  says,  "teaches  just  this,  that  the  Divine 
mind  was  pleased  to  take  upon  itself  a  human  body. 
We  have  no  warrant  in  Scripture  for  attributing  to 
Christ  any  other  part  of  human  nature  than  simply  a 
body."     And  again : 

"Let  me,  in  order  to  prevent  all  misapprehension, 
say  that  in  every  sense  that  man  can  understand,  I 
believe  in  the  Divinity  of  Christ.     It  is  fundamental  to 


*  From  Sermon  preached  in  Plymouth  Church,  Fall  of  1861.  Harper's 
edition,  vol.  ii.,  p.  120.  See  his  statement  of  belief  in  the  closing  part 
of  this  volume,  for  a  careful  statement  of  his  views  respecting  the  Atone- 
ment. 


108  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

Hay  system  of  thought,  to  my  conception  of  power, 
and  to  the  whole  of  my  ministry,  and  has  been,  with- 
out variableness  or  shadow  of  turning,  from  the  day, 
many,  many  years  ago,  when  I  learned  to  preach  with 
any  success.  I  believe  that  Jesus  holds  to  mankind 
the  same  relations  that  God  does ;  that  He  is  perfect 
by  His  very  nature  ;  that  He  has  all  power  ;  that  He  has 
supreme  authority  ;  that  all  that  human  reason  can 
conceive  of  Divinity  resides  in  Him  ;  that  He  is  the  ob- 
ject of  the  highest  love  in  heaven,  and  should  be  on 
earth  ;  that  the  most  absolute  obedience  is  due  Him  ; 
and  that  now  and  forever  'every  knee  should  bow, 
and  every  tongue  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord, 
to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father.'  "  * 

The  same  view  of  Christ  as  the  Divine  Spmt,  "mani- 
fested and  expressed  under  the  limitations  of  material 
laws  and  in  a  human  body,"  he  has  more  fully  ex- 
pressed in  his  Life  of  Christ,  f 

"  The  Divine  Spirit  came  into  the  world,  in  the  per- 
son of  Jesus,  not  bearing  the  attributes  of  Deity  in 
their  full  disclosure  and  power.  He  came  into  the 
world  to  subject  His  spirit  to  that  whole  discipline  and 
experience  through  which  every  man  must  pass.  He 
veiled  His  royalty  ;  He  folded  back,  as  it  were,  within 
Himself  those  ineffable  powers  which  belonged  to  Him 
as  a  free  spirit  in  heaven.  He  went  into  captivity  to 
Himself,  wrapping  in  weakness  and  forgetfulness  His 
divine  energies  while  He  was  a  babe.     '  Being  found 

*  Preached  in  Plj'moiith  Church,  Feb.  6th,  1881.     PubHshed  in  Chris- 
tian Union  of  Feb.  16th,  1881. 

j  Life  of  Jesus  the  Christ,  chap.  iii.   "The  Doctrinal  Basis." 


GOD  CAN  PUT  HIMSELF  INTO  FINITE  CONDITIONS.     109 

in  fashion  as  a  man,'  He  was  subject  to  that  gradual 
unfolding  of  His  buried  powers  which  belongs  to  in- 
fancy and  childhood.  'And  the  child  grew,  and 
waxed  strong  in  spirit.'  He  was  subject  to  the  restric- 
tions which  hold  and  hinder  common  men.  He  was  to 
come  back  to  Himself  little  by  little.  Who  shall  say 
that  God  cannot  put  Himself  into  finite  conditions? 
Though  as  a  free  spirit  God  cannot  grow,  yet  as  fet- 
tered in  the  flesh  He  may.  Breaking  out  at  times  with 
amazing  power,  in  single  directions,  yet  at  other  times 
feeling  the  mist  of  humanity  resting  upon  His  eyes,  He 
declares,  '  Of  that  day  and  hour  knoweth  no  man,  no, 
not  the  angels  which  are  in  heaven,  neither  the 
Son,  but  the  Father.'  This  is  just  the  experience 
which  we  should  expect  in  a  being  whose  problem  of 
life  was,  not  the  disclosure  of  the  full  power  and  glory 
of  God's  natural  attributes,  but  the  manifestation  of 
the  love  of  God,  and  of  the  extremities  of  self-renun- 
ciation to  which  the  Divine  heart  would  submit,  in  the 
rearing  up  from  animalism  and  passion  His  family  of 
children.  The  incessant  looking  for  the  signs  of  Divine 
power  and  of  infinite  attributes,  in  the  earthly  life  of 
Jesus,  whose  mission  it  was  to  bring  the  Divine  Spirit 
within  the  conditions  of  feeble  humanity,  is  as  if  one 
should  search  a  dethroned  king  in  exile,  for  his  crown 
and  his  sceptre.  We  are  not  to  look  for  a  glorified,  an 
enthroned  Jesus,  but  for  God  manifest  in  the  flesh ; 
and  in  this  view  the  very  limitations  and  seeming  dis- 
creiDancies  in  a  Divine  life  become  congruous  parts  of 
the  whole  sublime  problem." 

This  philosophy  of  Christ's  character  is  not,  however, 
that  which   Mr.  Beecher  has   made  prominent   in  his 


110  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

preaching.  The  prominence  has  been  given  to  his  per- 
sonal experience  of  love  for,  reverence  toward,  and  trust 
in  Jesus  Christ  as  a  personal  God  and  Saviour.  It  is 
in  this  personal  faith  that  he  recognizes  his  own  irre- 
concilable opposition  to  the  rationalistic  school  of 
thought. 

"  Could  Theodore  Parker  worship  my  God  ? — Christ 
Jesus  is  His  name.  All  that  there  is  of  God  to  me  is 
bound  up  in  that  name.  A  dim  and  shadowy  effluence 
rises  from  Christ,  and  that  I  am  taught  to  call  the 
■Pather.  A  yet  more  tenuous  and  invisible  him  of 
thought  arises,  and  that  is  the  Holy  Spirit.  But  neither 
are  to  me  aught  tangible,  restful,  accessible.  They 
are  to  be  revealed  to  my  knowledge  hereafter,  but  now 
only  to  my  faith.  But  Christ  stands  my  manifest 
God.  All  that  I  know  is  of  Him  and  in  Him.  I  put 
my  soul  into  His  arms,  as,  when  I  was  born,  my  father 
put  me  into  my  mother's  arms.  I  draw  all  my  life 
from  Him.  I  bear  Him  in  my  thoughts  hourly,  as  I 
humbly  believe  that  He  also  bears  me.  For  I  do  truly 
believe  that  we  love  each  other — I,  a  speck,  a  particle, 
a  nothing,  only  a  mere  beginning  of  something  that  is 
gloriously  yet  to  be,  when  the  warmth  of  God's  bosom 
shall  have  been  a  summer  for  my  growth  ;  and  He,  the 
Wonderful,  the  Counsellor,  the  Mighty  God,  the  Ever- 
lasting Father,  the  Prince  of  Peace  !  "  * 

To  Mr.  Beecher  the  divinity  of  Christ  is  not  a  dogma 
to  be  defended  by  scholastic  methods  ;  it  is  an  expe- 
rience to  be  confessed,  a  food  to  be  eaten  and  lived 
upon,  and  his  whole  heart  goes   out  in  worship   to 

*  Views  and  Experiences  of  Religious  Subjects,  p.  197. 


MR.    BEECHER  BELIEVES   IN   INSPIRATION.  Ill 

Clirist  as  the  one  altogether  lovely,  to  whom  every 
knee  shall  bow,  and  every  tongue  shall  make  confes- 
sion. 

"And  shall  I  follow  Christ  through  all  my  life  ;  be- 
hold His  beauty ;  twine  about  Him  every  affection  ; 
lean  upon  Him  for  strength  ;  behold  Him  as  my  leader, 
my  teacher  ;  feed  upon  Him  as  my  bread,  my  wine,  my 
water  of  life  ;  see  all  things  in  this  world  in  that  light 
which  He  declares  Himself  to  be  ;  in  His  strength  van- 
quish sin,  draw  from  Him  my  hope  and  inspiration, 
wear  His  name  and  love  His  work,  and  throughout 
my  whole  life  at  His  command  twine  about  Him  every 
affection,  die  in  His  arms,  and  wake  with  eager  upris- 
ing to  find  Him  whom  my  soul  loveth,  only  to  be  put 
away  with  the  announcement  that  He  is  not  the  recipi- 
ent of  worship  !  Well  might  I  cry  out  in  the  anguish 
of  Mary  in  the  garden,  'They  have  taken  away  the 
Lord,  and  we  know  not  where  they  have  laid  him.'  "  * 

6.  Holding  to  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  the  divine 
influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  regeneration  of  man, 
the  atoning  work  and  the  divine  character  of  Christ, 
it  is  almost  a  matter  of  course  that  Mr.  Beecher  be- 
lieves in  the  authenticity  of  the  New  Testament,  and  in 
the  reality  of  the  miracles.  NoAvhere  in  either  preach- 
ing or  writing  is  there  a  sign  of  that  feeble  rationalism 
which  attempts  to  reduce  the  supernatural  to  a  mini- 
mum without  rejecting  the  Bible  altogether  by  finding 
naturalistic  explanations  of  the  miraculous  events  re- 
corded in  the  Scripture. 


*  Sermon  preached  in  Plymouth  Church,  May  6th,  1860.     Harper's 
edition,  vol.  i.,  p.  85. 


112  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

"  We  scarcely  need  to  say  that  we  shall  take  our 
stand  with  those  who  accept  the  New  Testament  as  a 
collection  of  veritable  historical  documents,  with  the 
record  of  the  miracles,  and  with  the  train  of  spiritual 
phenomena,  as  of  absolute  and  literal  truth.  The  mi- 
raculous element  constitutes  the  very  nerve-system  of 
the  Gospel.  To  withdraw  it  from  credence  is  to  leave 
the  Gospel  histories  a  mere  shapeless  mass  of  pulp."  * 

Mr.  Beecher  has  always  occupied  this  stand  in  the 
pulpit,  on  the  platform,  and  in  all  his  published  writ- 
ings. 

7.  It  remains  only  to  speak  of  his  views  respecting 
future  retribution ;  vi^ws  which  have  been  sometimes 
misquoted  and  even  honestly  misapprehended. 

It  is  not  uncommon  for  ministers  to  give  their  con- 
gregations so  much  of  their  views  as  they  think  can  be 
given  without  subjecting  them  to  charges  of  heresy, 
and  Mr.  Beecher's  published  views  on  the  subject  of 
retribution  have  frequently  led  to  the  imputation  to 
him  of  views  which  he  does  not  hold,  and  which  he  has 
distinctly  repudiated.  His  general  teaching  in  its  prac- 
tical aspects  on  this  subject  may  be  characterized  as 
undogmatic.  He  holds  to  a  future  retribution,  but 
confesses  his  ignorance  respecting  its  nature,  character, 
and  duration.  A  paragraph  from  a  sermon  preached 
twenty-two  years  ago  illustrates  the  spirit  with  which 
he  treats  this  theme  in  his  practical  ministry. 

"For  all  those  who  have  been  clearly  taught,  who 
have  been  moved  by  their  wicked  passions  deliberately 
to  set  aside  Him  of  whom  the  prophets  spake,  whom  the 

*  Life  of  Jesus  the  Christ.     Introduction. 


EETRIBUTION.  113 

apostles  more  clearly  taught,  whom  the  Holy  Spirit, 
by  the  divine  power,  now  makes  known  to  the  world 
through  the  Gospel — for  them,  if  they  reject  their  Lord 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  there  remaineth  no  more  sac- 
rifice for  sin.  If  they  deliberately  neglect,  set  aside, 
or  reject  their  Saviour,  He  will  deliberately,  in  the  end, 
reject  them.  Sometimes,  in  dark  caves,  men  have  gone 
to  the  edge  of  unspeaking  precipices,  and,  wondering 
what  was  the  depth,  have  cast  down  fragments  of  rock, 
and  listened  for  the  report  of  their  fall,  that  they  might 
judge  how  deep  the  blackness  was  ;  and  listening — still 
listening — no  sound  returns;  no  sullen  plash,  no 
clinking  stroke  as  of  rock  against  rock — nothing  but 
silence,  utter  silence  !  And  so  I  stand  upon  the  preci- 
pice of  life  !  I  sound  the  depths  of  the  other  world 
with  curious  inquiries.  But  from  it  comes  no  echo 
and  no  answer  to  my  questions.  No  analogies  can 
grapple  and  bring  up  from  the  depths  of  the  darkness 
of  the  lost  world  the  probable  truths.  No  philosophy 
has  line  and  plummet  long  enough  to  sound  the  depths. 
There  remains  for  us  only  the  few  aathoritative  and 
solemn  words  of  God.  These  declare  that  the  bliss  of 
the  righteous  is  everlasting  ;  and  with  equal  directness 
and  simplicity  they  declare  that  the  doom  of  the  wick- 
ed is  everlasting."  * 

There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  Mr.  Beecher'  s  views 
have  been  modified  since  this  sermon  was  preached. 
He  has  never  himself  formulated  them  fully  in  any 
public  utterance.     It  is  doubtful  whether  he  has  yet 

*  Sermon  preached  in  Plymouth  Church,  Oct.  9th,  1859.     Harper's  edi- 
tion, vol.  i.,  p.  109. 


114  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

clearly  formulated  tliem  in  Ms  own  mind ;  but  the 
results  which  he  has  reached  he  has  declared  with 
his  accustomed  boldness.  They  include  the  following 
points  : 

1.  That  there  is  a  retribution,  an  after-death  punish- 
ment;  and  that  Christ  taught  this  truth*  "when  He 
declared  with  solemnity  and  earnestness  that  the  pen- 
alty of  wickedness  in  the  world  to  come  was  such  as  to 
warn  every  transgressor,  and  should  be  a  motive  to 
every  good  man  to  turn  back  his  fellows  from  evil.' ' 

2.  That  there  is  a  provision  of  mercy  in  another  life 
for  those  for  whom  no  adequate  provision  has  been 
made  in  this  ;  that  there  is  no  authority  in  Scripture 
for  the  commonly  received  notion  that  all  probation 
ends  with  this  life  ;  that  it  is  equally  impossible  to  be- 
lieve that  the  great  mass  of  the  human  race  up  to  this 
time  have  gone  from  death  into  heaven  without  any 
further  preparation,  or  that  they  have  been  doomed  to 
eternal  death  without  any  further  opportunity  for  re- 
pentance, or  larger  moral  influence  to  bring  them  to 
repentance.  This  view  he  has  stated  with  characteris- 
tic power  and  eloquence  in  his  famous  discourse  on 
"  The  Background  of  Mystery."  f 

' '  If,  now,  you  tell  me  that  this  great  mass  of  men, 
because  they  had  not  the  knowledge  of  Gfod,  went  to 
heaven,  I  say  that  the  inroad  of  such  a  vast  amount  of 
mud  swept  into  heaven  would  be  destructive  of  its 
purity  ;  and  I  cannot  accept  that  view.    If  on  the  other 


*  Sermon  preached  in  Plymonth  Church,  July  11th,  1880  ;  published 
in  Christian  Union,  July  14th,  1880. 

f  See  eermon  published  in  Christian  Union,  December  26th,  1877. 


ETERNAL  SUFFERING.  115 

hand  you  say  they  went  to  hell,  then  you  make  an  inli- 
del  of  me  ;  for  I  do  swear,  by  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
by  His  groans,  by  His  tears,  and  by  the  wounds  in  His 
hands  and  in  His  side,  that  I  will  never  let  go  of  the 
truth  that  the  nature  of  God  is  to  suffer  for  others 
rather  than  to  make  them  suffer.  If  I  lose  everything 
else,  I  will  stand  on  the  sovereign  idea  that  God  so 
loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  own  Son  to  die  for 
it  rather  than  it  should  die.  To  tell  me  that  there 
is  a  God  who  for  unnumbered  centuries  has  gone  on 
creating  men  and  sweeping  them  like  dead  ffies — nay, 
like  living  ones — into  hell,  is  to  ask  me  to  worship  a 
being  as  much  worse  than  the  conception  of  any  me- 
diaeval devil  as  can  be  imagined ;  but  I  will  not  wor- 
ship the  devil,  though  he  should  come  dressed  in  royal 
robes,  and  sit  on  the  throne  of  Jehovah.  I  will  not  wor- 
ship cruelty.  I  will  worship  love,  that  sacrifices  itself 
for  the  good  of  those  that  err,  and  that  is  patient  with 
them  as  a  mother  is  with  a  sick  child.  With  every  power 
of  my  being  I  will  worship  such  a  being  as  that." 

3.  That  any  one  of  God's  creatures  will  exist  in 
eternal  suffering  he  does  not  believe.  The  alternatives 
are  of  course  either  that  the  impenitent  will  be  re- 
claimed in  another  life  or  that  their  life  will  finally  be- 
come extinct.  Mr.  Beecher  does  not  accept,  or  at 
least  he  does  not  teach  either  of  these  alternatives. 
The  one  would  make  him  a  Universalist,  the  other  an 
Annihilationist.  He  is  neither.  His  position  is  that, 
if  not  of  ignorance,  at  least  of  one  who  holds  his  mind 
in  abeyance  waiting  for  further  light.  He  neither  ac- 
cepts the  dogma  of  Universalism,  that  all  men  will  be 
restored,  nor  that  of  Annihilationism,  that  some  men 


116  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

will  be  destroyed.  He  contents  himself  with  preaching 
simply  that  persistent  sin  in  this  life  involves  a  terri- 
ble doom  in  the  life  to  come,  respecting  the  nature  and 
outcome  of  which  the  Scriptures  leave  us  in  uncertain- 
ty. The  following  declaration  on  this  subject  is  recent 
and  explicit :  '^ 

"Whatever  I  believe  beyond  the  simple  statement 
of  our  Lord  that  the  consequences  in  this  life  go  over 
and  are  terrible  in  the  life  to  come,  whatever  is  beyond 
this,  the  explicit  Scripture,  is  a  belief  founded  upon 
analogy,  philosophy,  etc.,  and  is  an  opinion,  and  not 
a  definite  knowledge.  This  is  the  point  which  dis- 
criminates between  my  position  and  that  of  Univer- 
salists,  Restorationists,  Annihilationists,  and  Retribu- 
tionists.  They  hold  their  respective  views  as  dogmas  ; 
that  is,  as  facts  based  on  the  authority  of  Scripture.  I 
hold  simple  retribution  as  Scriptural,  but  its  duration, 
its  nature,  and  its  results  I  hold  simply  by  conjecture, 
and  not  by  dogmatic  assumption.  They  are  my  opin- 
ions ;  they  are  very  positive,  but  they  do  not  pretend 
to  be  founded  upon  express  Scriptural  warrant.  I  be- 
lieve that  what  Scripture  teaches  is  that  evil  done  here 
does  not  cease  with  death,  but  goes  over,  with  pains 
and  penalties  beyond." 

What  are  the  opinions  held  in  conjecture,  here 
hinted  at,  he  has  nowhere  publicly  disclosed ;  but  we 
believe  that  it  is  safe  to  say  that  they  involve  a  combi- 
nation of  Restorationism  and  Annihilationism  ;  a  belief 
in  a  future  probation  the  result  of  which  will  be  the 
restoration  of  some  and  the  final  extinction  of  others. 

*  Sermon  published  in  Christian  Union,  July  14th,  1880. 


THEOLOGICAL   POSITION   PECULIAR.  117 

We  have  now  gone  over  Mr.  Beecher's  general  theo- 
logical views,  summarizing  them,  as  the  limit  of  our 
space  compels  us  to  do,  with  brevity.  It  would  be 
easy  to  multiply  quotations  to  enforce  and  illustrate 
every  position.  We  have  shown  that  Mr.  Beecher,  in 
his  fundamental  faith  in  the  helplessness  of  man,  and 
the  helpfulness  of  God,  belongs  with  the  Evangelical 
as  opposed  to  the  Kationalistic  school ;  in  his  view  of 
the  divinity  of  Christ  and  the  necessity  for  an  atone- 
ment, with  the  Orthodox  as  opposed  to  the  Unitarian 
school.  But  in  the  Orthodox  School  he  occupies  a  po- 
sition as  a  theologian  peculiarly  his  own  :  in  his  view  of 
the  Bible,  regarding  it  rather  as  a  peculiar  product  of 
inspiration  than  as  the  product  of  a  peculiar  inspira- 
tion ;  in  his  view  of  human  nature,  regarding  sin  as  an 
individual  fact  in  experience,  and  history  as  a  course  of 
evolution  under  divine  guidance  ;  in  his  view  of  redemp- 
tion, regarding  regeneration  as  a  restoration  of  the  soul 
to  its  normal  condition  by  divine  influences,  and  atone- 
ment as  a  provision  for  pardon  and  reconciliation  af- 
forded by  God  through  Christ,  the  reasons  and  nature 
of  which  are  inexplicable  ;  in  his  view  of  Christ  as  the 
Divine  Spirit  manifested  in  a  human  body  and  under 
the  limitations  of  a  human  life  ;  in  his  view  of  miracles 
as  the  real  and  natural  attestations  of  divine  revelation, 
working  through  nature,  not  in  violation  of  it ;  and 
in  his  view  of  future  retribution  as  a  terrible  fact,  the 
nature  and  end  of  which  are  unrevealed. 


CHAPTER  YI. 

ME.    BEECHER   AS   A  JOURNALIST. 

Mr.  Beecher's  first  venture  as  an  editor  was  in 
Cincinnati,  a  short  time  before  entering  npon  his 
ministerial  work.  "He  was,"  says  Mrs.  Stowe,  "for 
four  or  five  months  editor  of  the  Cincinnati  Journal^ 
the  organ  of  the  N.  S.  Presbyterian  Church,  during  the 
absence  of  Mr.  Brainerd.  While  he  was  holding  this 
post,  the  pro-slavery  riot  which  destroyed  Birney's 
press  occurred,  and  the  editorials  of  the  young  editor 
at  this  time  were  copied  with  high  approval  by  Charles 
Hammond,  of  the  Cincinnati  Gazette,  undoubtedly 
the  ablest  editor  of  the  West,  and  the  only  editor  who 
dared  to  utter  a  word  condemnatory  of  the  action  of 
the  rioters.  Mr.  Beecher  entered  on  the  defence  of  the 
persecuted  negToes  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  his 
nature.  He  had  always  a  latent  martial  enthusiasm, 
and  though  his  whole  life  had  been  a  peaceful  one, 
yet  a  facility  in  the  use  of  carnal  weapons  seemed  a 
second  nature,  and  at  this  time,  he,  with  a  number  of 
other  young  men,  went  to  the  Mayor  and  were  sworn 
in  as  a  special  body  of  police,  who  patroled  the  streets, 
well  armed.  Mr.  Beecher  bore  his  pistol,  and  was  de- 
termined, should  occasion  arise,  to  use  it.  But  as 
usual  in  such  cases,  a  resolute  front  once  shown  dis- 
solved the  mob  entirely." 

But  journalism  as  a  real  avocation  he  first  took  up  in 


Mr.   Beecher    at    Different    Ages. 

(l)  At  23   years  of   age.      (2)   At  30.     (3)   At  40.      (4)   At  50.     {5)   At  65. 


MR.   BEECHER   AS   AN   EDITOR.  121 

Indianapolis,  as — Heaven  save  the  mark — a  recreation  ! 
He  was  settled  at  the  time  at  Indianapolis,  the  capital 
of  Indiana.  There  were  nothing  but  political  papers 
in  the  State — no  religious,  or  educational,  or  agricul- 
tural, or  family  papers.  The  Indiana  Journal  proposed 
to  add  an  agricultural  department,  to  be  reprinted 
monthly,  under  the  title  of  Western  Farmer  and 
Gardener^  and  Mr.  Beecher  undertook  to  edit  it.  His 
editorship  was  solely  a  labor  of  love  ;  his  preparation 
for  it  was  his  rest.  He  shall  tell  the  story  in  his  own 
words  ;  no  one  could  better  the  telling. 

"  It  may  be  of  some  service  to  the  young,  as  show- 
ing how  valuable  the  fragments  of  time  may  become, 
if  mention  is  made  of  the  way  in  which  we  became 
prepared  to  edit  this  journal.  The  continued  taxation 
of  daily  preaching,  extending  through  months,  and 
once  through  eighteen  consecutivve  months,  without 
the  exception  of  a  single  day,  began  to  wear  upon  the 
nerves,  and  made  it  necessary  for  us  to  seek  some  re- 
laxation. Accordingly  we  used,  after  each  week-night' s 
preaching,  to  drive  the  sermon  out  of  our  head  by 
some  alterative  reading.  In  the  State  Library  were 
Loudon's  works — his  Encyclopaedias  of  Horticulture, 
of  Agriculture,  and  of  Architecture.  We  fell  upon 
them  and  for  years  almost  monopolized  them.  In  our 
little  one-story  cottage,  after  the  day's  work  was  done, 
we  pored  over  these  monuments  of  an  almost  incredible 
industry,  and  read,  we  suppose,  not  only  every  Une, 
but  much  of  it  many  times  over  ;  until  at  length  we 
had  a  topographical  knowledge  of  many  of  the  fine 
English  estates  quite  as  intimate,  we  dare  say,  as  was 
possessed  by  many  of  their  truant  owners. 


122  HENRr   WARD   BEECHER. 

"  There  was  something  exceedingly  pleasant,  and  ia 
yet,  in  the  studying  over  mere  catalogues  of  flowers, 
trees,  fruits,  etc.  A  seedsman's  list,  a  nurseryman's 
catalogue,  are  more  fascinating  to  us  than  any  story. 
In  this  way,  through  several  years,  we  gradually  accu- 
mulated materials  and  became  familiar  with  facts  and 
principles,  which  paved  the  way  for  our  editorial  la- 
bors.  Lindley's  Horticulture  and  Gray's  Structural 
Botany  came  in  as  constant  companions.  And  when 
at  length,  through  a  friend's  liberality,  we  became  the 
recipients  of  the  London  Gardener' s  Chronicle,  edited 
by  Professor  Lindley,  our  treasures  were  inestimable. 
Many  hundred  times  have  we  lain  awake  for  hours 
unable  to  throw  off  the  excitement  of  preaching,  and 
beguiling  the  time  with  imaginary  visits  to  the  Chiswick 
Garden  or  to  the  more  than  Oriental  magnificence  of  the 
Duke  of  Devonshire's  grounds  at  Chatsworth.  We 
have  had  long  discussions,  in  that  little  bedroom  at 
Indianapolis,  with  Yan  Mons  about  pears,  \Y\th.  Vi- 
bert  about  roses,  with  Thompson  and  Knight  about 
fruits  and  theories  of  vegetable  life,  and  with  Loudon 
about  everything  under  the  heavens  in  the  horti- 
cultural world.  This  employment  of  waste  hours  not 
only  answered  a  purpose  of  soothing  excited  nerves 
then,  but  brought  us  into  such  relations  to  the  mate- 
rial world,  that,  we  speak  with  entire  moderation 
when  we  say  that  all  the  estates  of  the  richest  duke  in 
England  could  not  have  given  us  half  the  pleasure 
which  we  have  derived  from  pastures,  waysides,  and 
unoccupied  prairies." 

The  habit  of  learning  from  men  as  well  as  books  was 
characteristic  of  the  young  and  enthusiastic  editor, 


REMARKABLE  DESCRIPTION  OF  A  FLOWER.  123 

then  as  ever  since.  There  is  a  story,  for  the  details  of 
which  we  will  not  vouch,  that  he  was  accustomed  to  at- 
tend a  club  meeting  of  farmers,  paper  and  pencil  in 
hand,  always  modestly  refusing  to  join  in  the  discus- 
sions, but  always  keeping  careful  note  of  them  ;  and 
that  his  subsequent  embodiment,  not  however  usually 
in  form  of  reports,  of  the  sifted  results  of  the  discus- 
sions, was  one  of  the  features  which  gave  the  Western 
Farmer  and  Gardener  its  early  and  national  reputa- 
tion. It  was  one  of  the  first,  if  not  the  very  first,  suc- 
cesses in  agricultural  journalism  in  this  country. 
Another  story,  for  the  substantial  truth  of  which  I 
can  vouch,  shows  what  good  use  he  made  of  other 
people's  knowledge,  gathered  wheresoever  he  could 
find  it.  He  wrote  a  description  of  some  remarkable 
flower,  which  was  caught  up  and  copied  far  and  wide 
as  a  rare  portrait  of  a  rare  plant.  He  had  never  seen 
it,  however,  having  gathered  the  materials  for  his  pict- 
ure from  the  books  and  vitalized  them  by  his  own  pic- 
torial imagination.  Several  years  afterward  he  was 
visiting  an  Eastern  hothouse,  and  was  introduced  to 
the  gardener  as  the  editor  of  the  Western  Farmer  and 
Gardener.  The  host,  proud  of  his  possession  of  an  un- 
usually fine  specimen  of  the  flower  which  Mr.  Beecher 
had  so  graphically  described,  took  him  straight  to  see 
it.  Mr.  Beecher  examined,  admired,  and  asked  its 
name.  The  astonished  gardener  gave  its  scientific 
title.  "Yes!  yes!"  said  Mr.  Beecher;  "but  its 
common  name.  What  do  folks  call  it?"  Whereat 
the  indignant  gardener,  thinking  his  learned  guest  was 
chaffing,  told  him  to  his  astonishment  that  he  was 
looking  on  the  original  of  his  own  description,  and 


124  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

could  hardly  believe  Mr.  Beecher's  solemn  assertion 
that  he  had  never  set  eyes  upon  the  flower  till  that 
moment. 

When  in  1847  Mr.  Beecher  came  to  Brooklyn  the 
anti-slavery  struggle  was  beginning  to  assume  portent- 
ous dimensions.  Into  it  he  threw  himself  heart  and  soul, 
from  the  outset  being  a  leader  among  leaders  in  his 
intense  radicalism.  The  religious  press  was  almost 
wholly  either  pro-slavery  or  silent.  The  attitude  of 
the  great  body  of  the  churches  was  fairly  represented 
by  that  of  the  American  Tract  Society  and  the  Ameri- 
can Board.  The  one  would  publish  nothing  about 
slavery  because  all  evangelical  Christians  were  not 
agreed  concerning  it ;  the  other  would  bear  no  witness 
against  slavery  in  its  missions  among  the  ISTorth 
American  Indians,  because  to  speak  was  to  ensure  exile 
from  the  missionary  fields.  The  Tract  Societies  of 
Boston  and  Cincinnati  were  formed  in  protest  against 
the  silence  of  the  one  ;  the  American  Missionary  Asso- 
ciation in  protest  against  the  silence  of  the  other.  In 
this  epoch,  and  out  of  the  same  intense  feeling,  the 
New  York  Independent  was  born.  It  was  the  child  of 
the  battle-field  ;  its  god-fathers  and  god-mothers  were 
warriors.  Its  financial  support  was  furnished  by  three 
or  four  Congregationalists  who  were  also  abolitionists. 
Its  editors  were  a  trio  of  Congregationalists,  then  in 
their  prime  and  full  of  the  fire  of  youth  in  the  most 
fiery  epoch  of  their  country's  history — Drs.  Storrs, 
Bacon,  and  Thompson.  The  latter  was  stroke  oars- 
man. He  had  a  genius  for  organizing,  and  for  patient 
and  steady  work.  The  young  and  eccentric  preacher 
was  engaged  as  a  regular  contributor.     He  was  too 


A   GREAT   EDITOR.  125 

impetnons  and  too  independent  to  work  in  a  team  ; 
his  associates  preferred  that  he  should  alone  be  respon- 
sible for  his  own  utterances  ;  he  preferred  to  be  free  to 
utter  what  he  would,  untrammeled  by  any  sense  of 
divided  responsibility.  Mr.  Beecher,  like  General 
Grant,  has  never  held  a  council  of  war.  He  listens  to 
advice,  but  rarely  asks  it ;  takes  counsel,  and  is  often 
influenced,  but  never  governed  by  it.  Though  not  one 
of  its  editors,  he  did  perhaps  as  much  as  either  one  of 
them  to  give  the  paper  its  tone,  and  to  make  its  voice 
heard  throughout  the  United  States.  During  Cal- 
houn's last  illness  one  of  Mr.  Beecher's  contributions 
to  the  then  infant  Independent  was  read  to  the  dying 
statesman.  Paper  and  writer  were  then  alike  compar- 
atively unknown.  The  title  of  the  article,  "  Shall  we 
Compromise  V  indicates  its  theme  ;  its  character  can- 
not be  easily  imagined  except  by  one  who  puts  himself 
back  in  a  time  when  "  compromise"  was  the  theme  of 
Clay  and  Webster  in  the  Senate,  of  Stiles  and  Adams 
and  Blagden  in  the  pulpit,  of  the  N.  Y.  Observer  and 
the  Boston  Recorder  in  the  press,  indeed  of  almost 
every  politician,  pulpit,  and  newspaper  of  note  in  the 
land.  "  Read  that  again,"  said  the  dying  Calhoun  to 
his  secretary.  It  was  read  again.  "  Who  writes  that  ?" 
he  asked.  The  name  of  the  unknown  writer  was  given 
to  him.  "That  fellow  understands  his  subject,"  was 
Calhoun's  final  comment.  "  He  will  be  heard  from 
again.  He  has  gone  to  the  bottom."  It  is  not  without 
good  ground  that  the  author  of  the  "  History  of  Jour- 
nalism in  America"  counts  Henry  Ward  Beecher  one 
of  the  two  great  editors  of  the  United  States,  one  of 
the  two  journalists  par  excellence  of  America. 


126  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

.  His  method  of  preparation,  then  and  during  the 
short  subsequent  term  in  which,  after  the  resignation 
of  Drs.  Storrs,  Bacon,  and  Thompson,  he  acted  as 
editor-in-chief  of  the  paper,  was  peculiar.  The  con- 
trast between  the  methods  of  Dr.  Thompson  and  Mr. 
Beecher  was  characteristic. 

Dr.  Thompson  had  his  regular  day  at  the  office. 
He  rarely  missed  it ;  was  never  early,  never  late, 
always  exactly  punctual.  He  calculated  to  an  inch 
the  amount  of  matter  required,  and  never  gave  too 
little  or  too  much.  He  never  outstayed  his  time,  and 
never  hurried  away  before  it  had  expired.  He  was 
never  idle  and  never  in  a  hurry  ;  he  was  never  greatly 
excited  and  never  absolutely  at  rest.  As  an  editor  he 
was  the  delight  of  compositors  and  publishers,  Mr. 
Beecher  came  in  somewhere  about  the  time  his  manu- 
scrii)t  was  expected  ;  sometimes  boiling  over  with  ex- 
citement ;  sometimes  bubbling  over  with  humor.  He 
sat  and  talked  of  anything  and  everything  but  the 
business  before  him  till  the  printer's  devil  made  his 
final  and  imperative  demand  for  copy.  Then  he 
caught  up  his  pen,  turned  to  the  nearest  desk,  shut 
himself  up  in  his  shell  as  impenetrably  as  if  he  were  a 
turtle,  and  drove  his  jDen  across  the  paper  as  if  it  were 
a  House  printing  machine  and  he  were  an  electric  bat- 
tery. He  threw  off  the  pages  as  he  wrote  them,  left 
the  boy  to  pick  them  up  and  carry  them  off  to  the 
compositors'  room,  and,  the  work  done,  was  off,  leav- 
ing some  one  else  to  read  proof,  correct  errors,  and  sup- 
ply omissions.  But  what  he  wrote  in  a  heat  and  at  a 
sitting  went  like  a  ball  from  a  minie  rifle,  from  one 
end  of  the  land  to  the  other.     Wise  men  shook  their 


ALWAYS  READY  AND  THOROUGHLY  PREPARED.   127 

heads  over  Ms  "  imcautious  utterances,"  but  they 
kindled  thousands  of  hearts  into  a  blaze.  The  leaders 
which  characterized  the  Independent  during  his  short 
editorial  charge  of  the  paper  have  never  had  their 
equal  in  kindling  force  in  American  journalism.  It 
was  on  the  eve  of  the  civil  war.  It  required  the  man, 
the  time  and  the  audience  to  produce  them.  Never 
before  were  such  man,  such  time,  and  such  audience 
combined. 

The  onlooker  might  imagine  from  this  picture  that 
Mr.  Beecher  is  a  careless  workman,  throwing  off  crude 
impressions,  half -formed  and  ill-digested,  and  trusting 
to  genius  to  take  the  place  of  conscientious  study. 
The  onlooker  would  be  greatly  mistaken.  Mr.  Beech- 
er's  mind  works  like  lightning  in  production  because 
it  has  worked  thoroughly  in  preparation.  As  a  partial 
preparation  for  his  anti-slavery  editorials  he  made 
himself  thorough  master  of  Story  on  the  Constitu- 
tion, Kent's  Commentaries,  and  Lieber's  Civil  Liberty 
and  Self-government,  and  other  kindred  authorities. 
For  details  he  always  went  to  well-informed  specialists. 
His  memory  of  principles  is  as  tenacious  as  his  memory 
of  names  and  dates  is  slippery  and  evasive.  Whatever 
he  has  once  learned  always  comes  at  command  ;  he  is 
like  a  many-barrelled  revolver  ;  the  ammunition  is  all 
stowed  away  in  the  right  place,  and  in  the  time  of  bat- 
tle always  responds  to  the  click  of  the  trigger.  He  is 
always  sure  of  his  ground  ;  hence  he  walks  with  a  free 
and  firm  tread.  When  three  years  ago  he  published 
his  caustic  criticism  on  the  Bible  Society  for  suppress- 
ing a  revised  edition,  and  publishing  one  condemned  by 
its  own  committee  as  full  of  errors,  he  had  so  thor- 


128  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

ougMy  grounded  himself  in  every  detail  that  no  an- 
swer could  be  made,  and  none  was  attempted  by  the 
Society. 

The  ideal  editor  fulfils  a  threefold  function :  he 
is  creator,  administrator,  and  writer.  He  forms  his 
own  conception  what  the  journal  is  to  be,  what  place 
it  is  to  fill,  what  work  it  is  to  do,  what  circle  of  readers 
it  is  to  address ;  he  organizes  it  to  do  that  work,  se- 
cures the  writers,  examines  their  contributions,  meas- 
ures them  by  their  relation  to  his  conception  and  theu* 
adaptation  to  its  execution  ;  and  he  moulds  all  writers 
by  his  own  strong,  clear,  vigorous  writing,  leads  by 
his  pen,  and  others  follow,  Now  it  is  very  rare  that 
any  editor  fulfils  all  three  functions.  Mr.  Delane,  of 
the  London  Times ^  it  is  said,  never  wrote  a  word  for  his 
own  journal ;  he  was  creator  and  administrator.  His 
genius  was  that  of  organizer  ;  selector  of  men  to  write 
better  than  he  could  what  he  wished  written.  One  of 
the  ablest  editors  in  American  history  was  Fletcher 
Harper.  He  never  wrote  a  line  for  publication  ;  rarely 
if  ever  read  a  manuscript.  But  he  created  Harper' s 
Magazine^  Harpefs  Weekly  and  Harpef  s  Bazar ; 
selected  the  editors ;  pervaded  as  well  as  inspired 
their  administration  ;  gave  each  periodical  its  distinc- 
tive character  and  made  it  what  he  willed.  Horace 
Greeley  was  both  creator  and  writer,  the  Tribune 
was  a  new  birth ;  but  he  was  not  an  administrator, 
he  has  often  been  surpassed  in  the  art  of  organization. 
On  the  other  hand,  Henry  J.  Raymond  followed  ex- 
amples set  before  him  in  shaping  the  Times  ;  other 
writers  have  surpassed  him  in  both  force  of  thought 
and  compactness  of  expression  ;  but  he  was  absolutely 


"THE  CHRISTIAN   UNION."  129 

without  a  rival  in  the  art  of  managing  a  great  news- 
paper. Henry  Ward  Beecher  is  not  an  administrative 
editor  ;  he  has  never  attempted  for  any  length  of  time 
to  manage  a  newspaper  ;  but  he  has  created  a  new 
school  of  journalism,  and  he  has  given  it  impulse  and 
inspiration  by  his  own  pen. 

Immediately  after  his  withdrawal  from  the  Inde- 
pendent^  capital  was  offered  him  to  start  a  new  paper. 
The  idea  of  the  capitalists  was  to  make  it  a  new  Con- 
gregational journal,  but  that  was  not  Mr.  Beecher' s 
idea.  He  had  engaged  to  write  "!N"orwood,"  and  the 
newspaper  enterprise  was  laid  aside  for  the  time.  A 
little  later  J.  B.  Ford  &  Co.  purchased  the  feeble 
Church  Union,  living  with  a  scanty  subscription  list 
on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy,  and  announced  Mr. 
Beecher  as  its  future  editor.  The  scheme  of  the 
Church  Union  had  been  to  unite  all  Protestant  sects  in 
one  organic  church.  This  chimerical  project  had  no 
support  from  Mr.  Beecher' s  practical  mind;  he  or- 
dered a  change  of  its  name  to  Christian  Union,  and 
the  new  name  was  unfurled  upon  its  banner  before  the 
new  commander  had  assumed  the  responsibility  of 
command.  Its  title  indicated  its  essential  character. 
Mr.  Beecher  determined  to  have  a  paper  as  broad  as 
Christianity,  as  free  from  sectarian  bias  as  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.  He  determined  to  invite  to  its  columns 
men  of  every  name,  united  by  no  common  creed  nor  in 
any  common  organization,  but  only  in  a  common  si)irit 
of  love  for  men  and  faith  in  Clirist  as  their  Lord  and 
Saviour.  We  have  often  heard  him  say,  "It  is  i)os- 
sible  to  have  a  church  in  which  men  of  all  traditional 
faiths  and  systems  shall  unite  in  work  and  worship 


130  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

•for  Christ.  We  have  it  in  Plymouth  Church,  where 
Quaker  and  Episcopalian,  Calvinist  and  Arminian, 
Unitarian  and  Trinitarian,  sit  side  by  side  at  the 
same  communion-table  and  work  side  by  side  in  the 
same  Sunday-school.  I  believe  it  is  possible  to  have  a 
journal  which  shall  embody  the  same  principle."  That 
was  his  thought  when  a  year  or  two  before  he  had  been 
asked  to  start  a  new  Congregational  paper.  That  was 
his  thought  for  the  Christian  Union  from  the  day  of 
its  christening  with  its  new  name.  From  that  funda- 
mental thought  he  never  wavered  or  turned  aside.  It 
was  a  radical  thought  then.  Fifteen  years  ago  unde- 
nominational religious  journalism  was  absolutely  un- 
known if  not  unthought  of.  It  was  supposed  to  be 
necessary  to  have  a  church  constituency  behind  each 
church  organ.  In  England  each  great  Review  repre- 
sented a  religious  school  ;  such  monthly  symposia  as 
the  Nineteenth  Century  and  the  Contemporary^  in 
which  atheist  and  Roman  Catholic  churchman  sit 
down  at  the  same  table,  were  not  dreamed  of.  In  this 
country  the  Christian  at  Work,  the  Golden  Rule  and 
the  Alliance  were  not  born  ;  the  N.  Y.  Observer  was 
the  organ  of  the  Old  School  Presbyterians  ;  the  Inde- 
pendent, started,  as  its  name  indicates,  as  a  Congrega- 
tional journal,  on  money  furnished  by  Congregational 
capitalists,  to  j^romote  Congregational  ideas,  and  edited 
by  three  leading  Congregational  divines,  was  still  so 
far  recognized  as  a  Congregational  organ  that  a  junta  of 
Congregational  clergymen  in  the  ^Yest  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  call  it  to  account  for  its  loose  theology  and  take 
bonds  of  its  owner  for  better  behavior  in  the  future. 
It  was  at  this  epoch  that  Mr.   Beecher  launched   the 


THE  MISSION  OF    "THE   CHRISTIAN   UNION."        131 

Christian  Union  as  a  simply  Christian  newspaper. 
He  appealed  from  the  hierarchy  to  the  people.  He 
had  always  done  this  in  his  pulpit ;  he  now  made  a 
wider  appeal  in  the  newspaper. 

Along  with  this  fundamental  idea  was  another, 
equally  fundamental.  Dr.  William  M.  Taylor,  now  pas- 
tor of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  in  an  article  published 
in  1859,  in  the  Scotch  Remeio^  refers  to  Mr.  Beecher's 
' '  assertion  and  reiteration  of  the  great  truth  that  religion 
is  a  life  and  a  power  for  all  places  and  circumstances." 
To  assert  and  to  reiterate  this  was  from  the  first  the 
mission  to  which  he  ordained  the  Christian  Union. 
He  determined  to  make  a  i:)aper  primarily  for  the  com- 
mon people,  and  therefore  a  paper  primarily  helpful  to 
them,  and  therefore  a  paper  of  "life  thoughts."  To 
make  life  the  text-book  ;  to  lind  the  themes  in  daily 
events,  public  and  private ;  to  expound  Providence 
rather  than  the  Bible,  and  the  Bible  rather  than 
dogmatic  theology ;  to  teach  religion  as  an  art  rather 
than  as  a  science,  as  a  practical  art  rather  than  as  a 
species  of  aesthetics  :— this  was  the  purpose  with  which 
he  imbued  the  paper  from  its  birth.  Organ  of  party 
sect  or  person  he  would  not  have  it ;  not  even  an  organ 
to  defend  its  own  editor  when  every  other  religious 
journal  was  closed  against  his  friends.  And  so  it  was 
by  his  imperative  orders  that  it  kept  silence  when 
policy  would  have  dictated  vigorous  speech  ;  and  its 
managing  editors  could  avoid  the  possible  suspicion 
of  lack  of  fealty  to  their  slandered  associate,  only  by 
seizing  the  occasion  of  his  absence  from  the  city  to 
put  in  their  own  protests,  over  their  own  names, 
against  their  misconstrued  silence.     It  was  a  part  of 


/ 


132  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

this  same  determination  that  the  paper  should  teach 
a  practical  godliness,  which  made  him  resolute  that 
it  should  practise  what  it  preached.  He  would  have 
no  word  of  editorial  or  quasi  editorial  utterance  paid 
for  by  advertiser.  Of  Insurance  Department,  with 
its  paid  puffs  or  its  paid  silence,  and  Financial  De- 
partment, with  its  apparently  guileless  commenda- 
tions of  certain  stocks  at  so  much  a  line,  the  Christian 
Union  was  always  absolutely  clear  in  all  administra- 
tions.    ' 

The  history  of  the  paper,  of  which  he  was  the  father, 
like  that  of  all  journals,  has  been  one  of  varying 
fortunes.  It  sprang  into  a  marvellous  success  at  its 
birth,  reaching,  in  an  incredibly  short  time  after  its 
birth,  a  circulation  of  upward  of  a  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand.  Then  came  adversity  :  financial  diflBculties 
in  the  business  management,  odium  theologicum  ex- 
cited against  it  on  account  of  the  religious  views  of 
some  of  its  subordinate  editors,  the  "great  scandal," 
and,  more  influential  of  all,  "  hard  times,"  compelling 
great  reduction  of  receipts  both  from  subscribers  and 
advertisers.  But  the  paper  has  long  since  passed 
through  all  that  experience,  retaining,  in  minor  changes 
of  scope  and  administration,  its  name  and  essential 
character.  And  when,  in  the  fall  of  1881,  Mr.  Beecher 
sold  his  interest  in  it  to  personal  friends,  and  left  its 
direction  in  other  hands,  it  was  because  its  character 
and  future  were  established  beyond  peradventure,  and 
because  the  treble  duties  of  preacher,  lecturer,  and 
editor  had  grown  too  arduous  to  be  longer  continued. 
His  editorial  work  is  probably  ended,  but  his  editorial 
influence  will  never  cease   to  be  felt  in   the  larger 


THE   MISSION  OF  "THE  CHRISTIAN    UNION."         133 

charity,  the  broader  views  of  life,  and  the  greater  in- 
dependence of  thought  which  he,  as  much  perhaps  as 
any  living  man,  has  helped  to  impart  to  American 
journalism. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

MR.    BEECHER  AS  A  LECTURER  AND  ORATOR. 

In  "Men  of  Our  Times"  Mrs.  Stowe  writes  of  lier 
brother  as  a  boy  of  ten  years :  "Henry  Ward  was  not 
marked  out  by  the  prophecies  of  partial  friends  for 
any  brilliant  future.  He  had  precisely  the  organization 
which  often  passes  for  dullness  in  early  boyhood.  He 
had  great  deficiency  in  verbal  memory,  a  deficiency 
marked  in  him  through  life  ;  he  was  excessively  sensi- 
tive to  praise  and  blame,  extremely  diffident,  and  with 
a  power  of  yearning,  undeveloped  emotion  which  he 
neither  understood  nor  could  express.  His  utterance 
was  thick  and  indistinct,  partly  from  bashfulness  and 
partly  from  an  enlargement  of  the  tonsils  of  the  throat, 
so  that  in  speaking  or  reading  he  was  with  difficulty 
understood.  In  forecasting  his  horoscope,  had  any  one 
taken  the  trouble  then  to  do  it,  the  last  success  that 
ever  would  have  been  predicted  for  him  would  have 
been  that  of  an  orator.  ^  When  Henry  is  sent  to  me 
with  a  message,'  said  a  good  aunt,  'I  always  have  to 
make  him  say  it  three  times.  The  first  time  I  have  no 
manner  of  an  idea  more  than  if  he  spoke  Choctaw  ;  the 
second,  I  catch  now  and  then  a  word;  by  the  third 
time  I  begin  to  understand.'  " 

That  a  youth  so  eminently  unfitted  by  nature  to  be 
an  orator  should  have  become  subsequently  one  of  the 


HIS   ELOCUTIONARY   EDUCATION.  135 

greatest  of  modern  orators,  argues  an  application  to  the 
study  of  oratory,  and  a  determination  to  overcome  its 
difficulties,  not  less  arduous  than  were  shown  by  De- 
mosthenes, who,  to  correct  a  stammering  tongue,  prac- 
tised speaking  with  pebbles  in  his  mouth,  and  to 
strengthen  a  weak  voice  proclaimed  i:)oems  in  the  diffi- 
culty of  breath  which  was  caused  by  running  up  a  hill. 

Mr.  Beecher's  study  and  training,  although  of  a  dif- 
ferent nature,  were  no  less  thorough  and  efficacious 
than  the  methods  of  the  old  Athenian,  and  he  has 
lately  given  an  account  of  his  elocutionary  education. 
He  says  :  "  I  had  from  childhood  a  thickness  of  speech 
arising  from  a  large  palate,  so  that  when  a  boy  I  used 
to  be  laughed  at  for  talking  as  if  I  had  pudding  in  my 
mouth.  When  I  went  to  Amherst,  I  was  fortunate  in 
passing  into  the  hands  of  John  Lovell,  a  teacher  of 
elocution  ;  and  a  better  teacher  for  my  purpose  I  cannot 
conceive.  His  system  consisted  in  drill,  or  the  thorough 
practice  of  inflexions  by  the  voice,  of  gesture,  posture 
and  articulation.  Sometimes  I  was  a  whole  hour  prac- 
tising my  voice  on  a  word,  like  justice. 

"I  would  have  to  take  a  posture,  frequently  at  a 
mark  chalked  on  the  floor.  Then  we  would  go  through 
all  the  gestures  ;  exercising  each  movement  of  the  arm, 
and  the  throwing  open  the  hand.  All  gestures  except 
those  of  precision  go  in  curves,  the  arm  rising  from  the 
side,  coming  to  the  front,  turning  to  the  left  or  right. 
I  was  drilled  as  to  how  far  the  arm  should  come  for- 
ward, where  it  should  start  from,  how  far  go  back,  and 
under  what  circumstances  these  movements  should  be 
made.  It  was  drill,  drill,  drill,  until  the  motions  almost 
became  a  second  nature.     Now  I  never  know  what  move- 


136  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

ment  I  shall  make.  My  gestures  are  natural  because 
this  drill  made  them  natural  to  me.  Tlie  only  method  of 
acquiring  an  effective  education  is  by  practice  of  not 
less  than  an  hour  a  day,  until  the  student  has  his 
voice  and  himself  thoroughly  subdued  and  trained  to 
right  expression.'"^ 

As  a  preparation  for  the  work  of  his  life,  which  was 
to  be  largely  occupied  in  public  speal?:ing,  such  a 
thorough  course  in  elocution  even  to  one  unembarrassed 
with  defects  of  voice,  was  of  great  value  ;  for  an  intel- 
lect, however  powerful  and  rich,  without  the  adequate 
means  of  expression  and  emphasis,  would  be  crippled 
in  its  power  of  benefiting  mankind  in  no  small  degree. 
Mr.  Beecher's  study  of  oratory  at  Amherst  has  un- 
doubtedly been  one  of  the  most  efiicient  means  in  the 
acquirement  of  his  success,  and  has  been  an  attainment 
the  value  of  which  he  could  not  at  that  time  have  fore- 
seen. The  familiarity  with  the  ways  and  means  of  pro- 
ducing elocutionary  effects,  the  management  of  his 
voice,  the  carriage  of  his  figure,  and  the  use  of  hands  and 
arms  in  gesture,  were  thus  acquired  before  he  entered 
college,  and  he  did  not  cease  his  study  and  practice 
after  entering,  for  we  learn  from  Mrs.  Stowe :  "Oratory 
and  rhetoric  he  regarded  as  his  appointed  weapons, 
and  he  began  to  prepare  himself  in  the  department  of 
Tiow  to  say — meanwhile  contemplating  with  uncertain 
awe  the  great  future  problem  of  what  to  say.'''' 
For  the  formation  of  style  he  began  a  course  of  Eng- 
lish classical  study;  Milton's  prose  works.  Bacon, 
Shakspeare,  and  the  writers  of  the  Elizabethan  period 

*  Christian  Union,  July  14th,  1880. 


HIS   LECTURES   TO   YOUNG   MEN.  137 

were  his  classics,  read  and  re-read,  and  deeply  pon- 
dered." 

The  resources  thus  acquired  were  then,  as  now,  fre- 
quently drawn  upon,  not  only  in  college  exercises,  but 
in  occasional  appearances  before  the  village  audience 
where,  it  will  be  remembered,  he  delivered  three  lectures 
on  Phrenology. 

These  are,  however,  of  interest  only  as  historical 
facts,  and  as  the  first  steps  in  the  field  of  platform- 
speaking.  The  series  of  "Lectures  to  Young  Men," 
delivered  during  Mr.  Beecher's  pastorate  in  Indianap- 
olis, are  the  first  that  stand  out  conspicuously  with  the 
seal  of  the  man's  maturity  and  earnestness  of  purpose. 
They  were  preached  first  as  sermons,  and  were  called 
forth  by  the  depravity  and  vice  and  immorality  which 
at  that  time  characterized  much  of  Western  civilization. 
Mr.  Beecher  relates  of  them  :  "  The  lectures  were  writ- 
ten each  one  during  the  week  preceding  the  day  of  its 
delivery.  I  well  remember  the  enjoyment  which  I  had 
in  their  preparation.  They  were  children  of  early  en- 
thusiasm." 

Although  addressed  to  young  men,  they  are  full  of 
important  lessons  for  all  ages  from  youth  to  old  age. 
The  topics  reveal  the  character  of  the  lectures.  Indus- 
try and  Idleness,  Dishonesty,  Gamblers  and  Gambling, 
The  Strange  Woman,  Popular  Amusements,  Practical 
Hints,  Profane  Swearing,  Vulgarity,  Happiness — under 
these  titles  Mr.  Beecher  presents  impressive  warnings, 
draws  vivid  pictures  of  vice  and  its  results,  expresses 
important  truths,  and  appeals  to  the  highest  manhood 
of  every  youth.  The  illustrations  are  fresh  and  happy, 
frequently  humorous,  and  throughout  the  lectures  there 


138  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

is  such  genuine  interest  in  arid  sympathy  with  the  lives 
of  young  people,  that  they  at  once  feel  the  writer's  ear- 
nestness and  integrity  of  purpose  and  recognize  the 
truth  of  his  teachings.  The  style  is  vigorous,  forcible, 
earnest,  abounding  in  life-like  pictures  that  convey  a 
fuller  meaning  and  a  stronger  moral  than  any  amount 
of  abstract  treatise  on  immorality. 

The  forcible  and  realistic  scenes  that  he  describes  in  the 
lecture  on  Gambling,  for  instance,  carry  such  a  weight 
of  meaning  in  their  words,  and  are  so  full  of  signifi- 
cance, that  they  need  no  extended  explanation  to  bring 
home  to  his  hearer's  hearts  the  sad  moral  they  convey. 
In  a  series  of  word-pictures  he  portrays  the  career  of 
a  young  man,  "  a  whole-souled  fellow,  who  is  afraid  to 
seem  ashamed  of  any  fashionable  gayety."  Scene  first 
introduces  the  reluctant  and  conscience-stricken  youth 
at  a  quiet  little  card  and  wine-party  in  a  genteel  coffee- 
house. Scene  second  is  a  silent  room  in  the  early 
morning.  Candles  bum  dimly  on  a  table,  round 
which  are  seated  four  men,  motionless,  haggard  and 
watchful,  intent  on  their  cards  and  each  other's  faces. 
At  length  they  rise  and  withdraw  ;  some  with  their 
gains,  others  sullen  over  their  losses.  The  young  man 
is  the  most  sullen  and  the  fiercest  of  them  all.  Scenes 
third  and  fourth  we  quote  entire  : 

"Scene  the  third.  Years  have  passed  on.  He  has  seen  youth  ruined, 
at  first  with  expostulation,  then  •with  only  silent  regret,  then  con- 
senting to  take  part  of  the  spoils  ;  and,  finally,  he  has  himself  de- 
coyed, duped,  and  stripped  them  without  mercy.  Go  with  me  into 
that  dilapidated  house,  not  far  from  the  landing,  at  New  Orleans. 
Look  into  that  dirty  room.  Around  a  broken  table,  sitting  upon 
boxes,    kegs,    or  rickety   chairs,    see   a  filthy   crew   dealing   cards 


GAMBLERS    DESCRIBED.  139 

smouched  with  tobacco,  grease,  and  liquor.  One  has  a  pirate-face 
burnished  and  burnt  with  brandy  ;  a  shock  of  grizzly  matted  hair, 
half  covering  his  villain  eyes,  which  glare  out  like  a  wild  beast's 
from  a  thicket.  Close  by  him  wheezes  a  white-faced  dropsical 
wretch,  vermin-covered,  and  stenchful.  A  scoundrel  Spaniard  and 
a  burly  negro  (the  jolliest  of  the  four)  complete  the  group.  They 
have  spectators — drunken  sailors,  and  ogling,  thieving,  drinking 
women,  who  should  have  died  long  ago  when  all  that  was  womanly 
died.  Here  hour  draws  on  hour,  sometimes  with  brutal  laughter, 
sometimes  with  threat  and  oath  and  uproar.  The  last  few  stolen 
dollars  lost,  and  temper  too,  each  charges  each  with  cheating,  and 
high  words  ensue,  and  blows  ;  and  the  whole  gang  burst  out  the 
door,  beating,  biting,  scratching  and  rolling  over  and  over  in  the 
dirt  and  dust.  The  worst,  the  fiercest  the  drunkenest,  of  the  four  is 
our  friend  who  began  by  making  up  the  game. 

^^ Scene  the  fourth.  Upon  this  bright  day  stand  with  me,  if  you 
would  be  sick  of  humanity,  and  look  over  that  multitude  of  men 
kindly  gathered  to  see  a  murderer  hanged.  At  last  a  guarded  cart 
drags  on  a  thrice-guarded  wretch.  At  the  gallows'  ladder  his 
courage  fails.  His  coward  feet  refuse  to  ascend  ;  dragged  up,  he  is 
supported  by  bustling  officials  ;  his  brain  reels,  his  eye  swims,  while 
the  meek  minister  utters  a  final  prayer  by  his  leaden  ear.  The 
prayer  is  said,  the  noose  is  fixed,  the  signal  is  given  ;  a  shudder  runs 
through  the  crowd  as  he  swings  free.  After  a  moment  his  con- 
vulsed limbs  stretch  down  and  hang  heavily  and  still  ;  and  he  who 
began  to  gamble  to  make  up  a  game,  and  ended  with  stabbing  an 
enraged  victim  whom  he  had  fleeced,  has  here  played  his  last  game, 
himself  the  stake." 

Such  pictures  as  these,  considered  artistically,  possess 
a  power,  an  accuracy  of  detail,  an  artistic  sense  of 
coloring  and  composition,  an  arrangement  of  light 
and  shade,  that  mark  the  author  as  an  artist ;  con- 
sidered morally,  they  possess  a  depth  of  significance, 
a  directness  of  application,  a  sincerity  of  purpose, 
and  a  power  of  instruction  that  show  a  great  teacher. 


140  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER, 

They  bear  a  strong  resemblance  to  tlie  works  of 
Hogarth,  and  the  word  pictures  of  Mr.  Beecher  might 
have  been  the  interpretation,  if  one  were  needed,  of 
the  works  of  the  great  English  artist.  But  neither 
the  word-pictures  nor  the  painted  pictures  require 
interxjretation.  Both  speak  for  themselves.  With 
equal  power,  the  British  artist  with  his  brush  and 
the  American  preacher  with  his  sermons  have  pre- 
sented the  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  the  follies  of 
their  respective  times  ;  and  while,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
scenes  of  Hogarth  possess  a  power  of  satire  that  is  lack- 
ing in  those  of  Mr.  Beecher,  there  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
an  earnestness  of  moral  purpose  in  the  scenes  of  Mr. 
Beecher  that  is  wholly  wanting  in  the  paintings  of  the 
English  master.  The  paragraphs  here  quoted  are  but 
solitary  examples  of  pictures  that  abound  throughout 
these  lectures,  which,  dealing  with  moral  subjects,  are 
thoroughly  practical,  and  calculated  to  awaken  the 
dormant  perceptions  of  young  men  to  the  dangers  that 
surround  them. 

These  lectures  were  first  collected  and  published  in 
1845  ;  a  second  edition  was  brought  out  in  1846,  and  of 
these  two  editions  more  than  sixty  thousand  copies 
were  sold.  A  third  edition  was  published  in  1873  by 
J.  B.  Ford  &  Co.  of  New  York,  who  included  it  in 
theii'  "Uniform  Edition"  of  Mr.  Beecher' s  works. 
In  the  preface  to  the  third  edition  Mr.  Beecher  gives 
this  humorous  account  of  the  lectures  and  the  narrow- 
ness of  their  escape  from  oblivion :  ' '  Dr.  Isaac  Bar- 
rows' sermons  had  long  been  favorites  of  mine.  I  was 
fascinated  by  the  exhaustive  thoroughness  of  his  treat- 
ment of  subjects,  by  a  certain  calm  and  homely  dignity, 


ENCOURAGEMENT.  141 

and  by  Ms  marvellous  procession  of  adjectives.  Ordi- 
narily adjectives  are  the  parasites  of  substantives — 
courtiers  that  hide  or  cover  the  king  with  blandish- 
ments— but  in  Barrow's  hands  they  became  a  useful 
and  indeed  quite  respectable  element  of  comi)Osition. 
Considering  my  early  partiality  for  Barrow,  I  have 
always  regarded  it  as  a  wonder  that  I  escaped  so  largely 
from  the  snares  and  temptations  of  that  rhetorical 
demon,  the  Adjective.  Barrow  has  four  sermons  on 
'Industry.'  I  began  reading  them.  Before  half  fin- 
ishing the  first  one,  I  had  found  that  he  had  said  every- 
thing I  had  thought  of  and  a  good  deal  more.  In  utter 
disgust  I  threw  my  manuscript  across  the  room,  and 
saw  it  slide  under  the  bookcase,  and  there  it  would 
have  remained  had  not  my  wife  pulled  it  forth.  After 
many  weeks,  however,  I  crept  back  to  it,  led  by  this 
curious  encouragement.  A  young  mechanic  in  my 
parish  was  reading  with  enthusiasm  a  volume  of  lec- 
tures to  young  men,  then  just  published.  Every  time 
I  met  him  he  was  eloquent  with  their  praise.  At 
length,  by  his  persuasion,  I  consented  to  read  them, 
and  soon  opened  my  eyes  with  amazement.  After 
going  through  one  or  two  of  them,  I  said,  '  If  these 
lectures  can  do  good,  I  am  sure  mine  may  take  their 
chance !  '  I  resumed  their  preparation,  but  I  kept 
Barrow  shut  up  on  the  shelf." 

Mr.  Beecher  has  appeared  as  a  lecturer  and  an  orator 
for  many  seasons  and  on  many  occasions. 

"In  1856  the  society,"  says  the  Plymouth  Church 
Manual,  "at  the  request  of  a  number  of  eminent  clergy- 
men and  others,  voted  him  leave  of  absence  to  traverse 
the  country  on  behalf  of  the  cause  of  liberty,  then  felt 


142  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

to  be  in  peril."  At  the  time  of  the  "fugitive  slave 
law"  bill,  when  there  was  instituted  a  Union  Saving 
Committee  at  Castle  Garden,  New  York,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  making  out  black  lists  of  those  merchants  who 
were  to  be  ruined  financially  unless  they  consented  to 
change  their  principles,  Mr.  Beecher  labored  manfully 
in  maintaining  the  proscribed  merchants,  and  urging 
them  to  resistance.  He  also  lectured  upon  this  subject 
throughout  New  England  and  New  York,  and  wrote  a 
series  of  articles  for  the  Independent."^  He  has  de- 
livered single  lectures,  and  lectures  in  courses,  in  many 
of  the  principal  cities  of  New  England,  the  Middle 
States,  the  South  and  West,  and  it  is  stated  on  good 
authority  that  his  beautiful  country  home  at  Peekskill 
on  the  Hudson  was  built  from  the  proceeds  of  two 
years'  lectures. 

Mr.  Beecher  came  to  the  East  in  the  midst  of  the 
intensity  of  the  anti-slavery  conflict,  threw  himself  into 
it,  in  the  metropolis,  with  all  the  ardor  of  his  passion- 
ate nature,  and  at  once  occupied  a  front  rank  on  a. 
platform  which  abounded  with  orators,  and  in  an  epoch 
which  evoked  oratory  such  as  has  at  no  other  time  in 
American  history  been  heard  in  America.  Prom  1847 
to  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  in  1861  the  nation 
was  steadily  rising  from  a  red  heat  to  white  heat,  till 
it  became  molten  in  war.  The  volcano  underneath 
was  heaving ;  the  eruption  was  preparing  to  take 
place.  Slavery  was  becoming  more  and  more  lordly 
and  arrogant,  and  was  steadily  extending  its  aggres- 
sions.    It  had  long  since  purchased  Louisiana.      It 

*  Mrs.  Stowe's  "Men  of  Our  Times." 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY   EPOCH.  143 

had  swooped  down  upon  Mexico,  to  make  of  Texas  a 
slave  empire  of  enormous  proportions.  It  followed 
this  act  of  spoliation  by  trampling  under  foot  its  own 
covenant,  destroying  the  Compromise  line,  and  open- 
ing all  the  farther  West  to  slavery.  The  Douglas 
device  of  "Squatter  Sovereignty" — the  absurd  no- 
principle  that  the  first  handful  of  immigrants  in  a  Ter- 
ritory should  be  permitted  to  determine  its  perma- 
nent character  and  destiny — was  next  invented.  Kansas 
was  thus  flung  open  to  the  border  ruffians,  with  pistol 
and  bowie-knife,  who  wanted  no  better  sport  than  the 
guerilla  campaign  to  which  this  invited  them.  The 
North  proved  herself  equal  to  the  emergency  :  emi- 
gration societies  were  organized ;  the  emigrants  were 
equipped  with  Sharpe's  rifles  ;  and  at  public  meetings 
held  in  churches  at  the  North  collections  were  taken 
up  to  aid  them.  It  was  at  one  such  collection  that 
Mr.  Beecher,  in  one  of  those  epigrammatic  utterances 
which  are  sometimes  the  best  fruit  of  genuine  oratory, 
declared  that  a  Sharpe's  rifle  was  better  than  a  Bible  to 
convert  a  border  ruflfian — an  epigram  that  ran  through 
all  the  country,  and  earned  for  the  rifle  the  name  of 
"  Beecher 's  Bible."  Popular  Sovereignty  failed,  and 
Kansas  was  made  free  by  her  own  vote.  Then  the 
next  step  was  taken  :  slavery  was  declared  not  local 
but  national ;  and  the  right  of  the  master  to  hold  his 
slave  in  every  State  of  the  Union  was  gravely  argued 
on  constitutional  grounds  by  lawyers,  and  even  seri- 
ously defended  on  moral  grounds  by  Doctors  of  Di- 
vinity. Mr.  Toombs  made  his  famous  boast  that  he 
would  call  the  roll  of  his  slaves  under  the  shadow  of 
Bunker  Hill ;  and  it  did  not  seem  then  the  presump- 


144  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

.  tuous  boast  that  it  seems  now.  The  demoralization  of 
the  public  conscience  was  frightful.  The  church-bells 
all  over  the  country  called  men  together  to  save  not 
fellow-men  from  chains  and  slavery,  but  the  Union  by 
perpetuating  slavery  and  fastening  the  chains  upon 
the  slave.  The  doctrine  of  a  "  higher  law"  than  the 
law  of  the  land  was  not  only  jeered  at  by  politicians 
but  denounced  by  ministers.  The  Fugitive  Slave  law 
made  it  a  crime  to  aid  a  man  escaping  from  bondage  ; 
to  feed  him,  clothe  him,  guide  him,  shelter  him. 
Ministers  from  the  pulpits  preached  the  duty  of  obedi- 
ence to  this  infamous  law,  on  the  text,  "The  powers 
that  be  are  ordained  of  God."  The  crime  against 
humanity  was  ignored  ;  the  condemnation  uttered  by 
Christ  against  those  who  do  not  feed  the  hungry, 
clothe  the  naked,  visit  the  sick  and  the  imprisoned, 
was  practically  erased  from  the  New  Testament.  I  well 
remember  the  impression  produced  upon  the  audience 
by  Mr.  Beecher  one  Sunday  morning  by  a  single  sen- 
tence, solemnly  uttered  with  upraised  hand  :  "  If  I  had 
a  son  who  was  a  slave,  and  he  did  not  seek  for  liberty 
at  every  hazard  and  at  every  cost,  I  would  write  across 
his  name  the  word  '  Disowned.'  "  The  sentence  seems 
simple  enough  now,  but  it  thrilled  the  audience  then 
like  a  flash  of  electricity  from  a  powerful  battery. 

Such  an  epoch  was  prolific  in  orators  and  oratory. 
The  audience,  the  time,  the  theme,  the  men,  were  all 
there.  Among  the  men  it  is  certain  there  was  no  one 
who  was  more  execrated  and  admired,  more  feared 
and  loved,  than  the  young  preacher  from  the  West. 
His  practical  sense  and  his  catholic  spirit,  no  less  than 
his  passionate  earnestness  and   his  dramatic  genius, 


MR.  BEECHER'S   POSITION.  145 

made  Mm  a  power  among  men  of  power.  He  believed 
with  the  Abolitionists  that  slavery  was  a  crime  against 
humanity  and  against  Grod,  but  he  never  joined  them 
in  personal  execration  of  the  slaveholder.  He  be- 
lieved with  them  that  it  was  the  sacred  and  solemn 
duty  of  the  IS'orth  to  rid  itself  of  all  responsibility  for 
slavery,  but  he  repudiated  the  Garrisonian  charac- 
terization of  the  Constitution  as  a  "  compact  with 
hell,"  and  regarded  it  with  respect,  as  an  instrument 
possessed  with  the  spirit  of  liberty,  but  not  with  a 
superstitious  reverence,  as  a  divinely  inspired  oracle 
which  common  hands  could  not  improve.  In  the  pul- 
pit, on  the  platform,  in  lectures  and  addresses,  all  over 
the  North  he  labored  to  arouse  the  public  conscience,  to 
stir  the  public  feeling,  to  shake  off  the  public  lethargy. 
One  of  the  most  dramatic  acts  of  his  life  belongs  to 
this  epoch.  It  was  in  the  old  Broadway  Tabernacle, 
which  was  packed  from  floor  to  ceiling.  The  chains 
with  which  John  Brown  had  been  bound  had  been 
brought  into  the  meeting,  and  lay  upon  the  table  on 
the  platform.  The  orator  kindled  as  he  spoke  ;  the 
chains  before  him  became  a  symbol  of  the  chains  that 
bound  the  wrists  of  three  million  slaves,  and  in  an  out- 
burst of  passion  he  seized  upon  them,  cast  them  upon 
the  floor,  and  ground  them  beneath  his  heel  as  though 
he  would  then  and  there  grind  the  whole  power  of 
slavery  to  dust  beneath  his  feet.  The  effect  was  inde- 
scribable. The  whole  audience  cheered  till  the  roof 
rang,  and  all  hearts  took  a  new  vow  to  march  on  till 
every  chain  should  be  broken  and  every  slave  set  free. 
A  book  might  be  filled  with  illustrative  incidents  of 
the  oratory  of  that  period  ;  and  of  all  its  orators — 


146  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

Seward,  Chase,  Sumner,  Phillips,  Garrison,  Parker, 
Thompson,  Bacon — none  in  immediate  power  over  an 
audience  equalled  Mr.  Beecher.  One  such  instance 
must  serve  here.  It  occurred  a  little  over  a  year  after 
Mr.  Beecher  had  occupied  the  pulpit  of  Plymouth 
Church.  He  was  called  to  a  meeting  held  at  the 
Broadway  Tabernacle  in  New  York  City,  October 
23d,  1848.  The  people  were  assembled  to  raise  a  ran- 
som for  two  suffering  slave-girls,  and  the  occasion  was 
one  that  called  for  an  orator's  most  earnest  efforts  and 
the  most  hearty  co-operation  of  individuals.  Mr. 
Beecher  has  said  of  late,  looking  back  to  that  time, 
that  "  he  considered  it  one  of  the  most  memorable 
evenings  of  his  life."  A  private  letter  of  that  date 
from  one  who  was  present  gives  the  following  simple 
but  graphic  picture  of  the  scene.  For  it  we  are 
indebted  to  a  friend.  It  has  not,  we  believe,  before 
been  published : 

October  24,  1848. 

Last  evening  we  went  over  to  a  great  meeting  held  in  the  Broad- 
way Tabernacle  for  the  purpose  of  raising  two  thousand  dollars  for 
the  redemption  of  the  Edmistons,  two  poor  slave-girls,  in  whose  case 
Mr,  Beecher  was  much  interested.  The  speakers  announced  were 
Mr.  H.  W.  Beecher,  Dr.  Dowling,  and  Alvan  Stewart,  Esq.  As 
Stewart  did  not  make  his  appearance,  the  two  reverends  had  it  all  to 
themselves.  The  immense  house  was  crowded.  The  building,  you 
know,  is  an  amphitheatre,  with  the  speaker's  platform  on  the  floor, 
or  but  slightly  raised.  We  sat  in  the  singers'  seats,  directly  behind 
the  speakers  and  facing  the  great  congregation.  Such  a  sight  is  in 
itself  alone  very  impressive,  and  full  of  solemnity.  It  has  a  judg- 
ment-day effect  upon  the  imagination. 

I  need  not  tell  you,  I  am  sure,  that  Mr.  Beecher  spoke  well, 
and  with  great  power,  and  that  as  he  poured  forth  the  breath- 
ing thoughts  and  burning  words  of  indignation,   scorn,  contempt, 


SLAVE   GIRLS   PURCHASED.  147 

and  pity,  his  audience  seemed  completely  in  his  hands,  and  the 
breathless  silence,  the  flowing  tear,  or  the  thunder  of  applause  gave 
unmistakable  evidence  that  he  made  himself  understood  and  felt. 
He  seemed  to  enjoy  the  hurrahs  ! 

"  I  thank  you  for  that  noise  !"  said  he,  after  a  tremendous  burst  ; 
"  it  cheers  me,  and  makes  me  feel  that  I  am  among  inen — men  and 
brethren.''''  As  you  may  suppose,  he  got  it  again.  In  speaking  of  the 
old  man,  the  father  of  these  girls,  he  stopped  sliort.  ^ '■The father  P^ 
he  exclaimed.  "  Do  goods  and  chattels  have  fathers  ?"  Do  slaves 
have  datighters  ?  The  father  !  would  to  God  Will  Shakespeare  was 
living  !  He  might  make  a  drama  out  of  that  sentence  more  touching 
than  any  he  ever  wrote  !"  After  Dr.  Dowling's  address,  which  was 
very  good,  and  in  some  respects  letter  than  Mr.  Beecher's,  a  collec- 
tion was  taken  up,  and  reported  as  $600.  This  was  not  satisfactory 
to  ministers  or  people.  A  voice  from  the  crowd,  "Take  up  an- 
other !"  Another  collection  was  made,  but  still  several  hundreds 
were  lacking.  Mr.  S.  B.  Chittenden  gave  his  name  for  another  |50  ; 
his  brother,  Henry  Chittenden,  another  $50  ;  H.  C.  Bowen,  $100  ; 
Chittenden,  another  $25  ;  and  so  the  ball  rolled  on,  the  ministers  on 
the  platform  making  short  and  appropriate  remarks,  the  audience 
calling  out,  "  How  much  is  wanting  now  ?" 

Mr.  Beecher  seemed  to  be  on  his  feet  and  talking  all  the  time, 
popping  about  like  a  box  of  fireworks  accidentally  ignited,  and 
going  off  in  all  shapes  and  directions — a  rocket  here  with  falling 
stars,  a  fiery  wheel  there,  and  before  you  could  think,  a  nest  of  ser- 
pents right  in  your  teeth. 

During  one  of  the  pauses  Mr.  Beecher  sprang  up,  exclaiming, 
*'  Where  is  Captain  Knight,  of  the  New  World  ?  I  thought  I  saw 
him!"  '■'■Here!''''  cried  a  manly  voice  from  the  gallery;  "  he  has 
contributed  twice,  and  if  you  will  come  on  board  the  ship  in  the 
morning  he  will  contribute  again."  A  hearty  burst  of  applause  fol- 
lowed. "  We  want  him  on  the  platform,"  said  Mr.  Beecher.  He 
came  in  a  few  moments,  amid  the  cheering  of  the  audience.  Mr.  B. 
urged  him  to  speak,  to  which  he  seemed  to  demur,  turning  slightly 
from  the  people. 

"  The  Captain  does  not  feel  quite  so  bold  here  as  on  the  deck  of 


148  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

his  ship,  but  he'll  give  us  a  good  speech,"  said  Mr.  Beecher,  patting 
"him  on  the  shoulder,  and  gently  turning  hin\  toward  the  audience. 

As  the  Captain  is  a  fine,  handsome-looking  fellow,  well  whiskered, 
and  a  head  and  shoulders  taller  than  Mr.  Beecher,  the  effect  was 
irresistibly  comic,  and  brought  another  round  from  the  crowd. 
Captain  Knight  made  a  short  speech,  and  without  mentioning  what 
he  had  given  before,  gave  another  fifty.  When  the  whole  sum  was 
raised  but  fifty  dollars,  "Now,"  said  Mr.  Beecher,  "I  never  did 
hurrah  in  a  public  meeting,  but  when  this  account  is  closed  up,  I 
will  join  in  three  of  the  loudest  cheers  that  ever  rang  through  this 
old  building."  "  I'll  take  the  balance,"  called  out  Mr.  Studwell  of 
Plymouth  Church.  And  then  there  teas  a  mighty  shout  !  Hats 
were  swung,  handkerchiefs  waved,  mouths  were  on  the  very  broad- 
est grin,  and  more  ministers  than  Mr.  Beecher  joined  in  the  row. 
Three  cheers  were  given  for  Captain  Knight,  three  more  for  Mr. 
Beecher,  and  then  the  people  quieted  down  under  the  influence  of  one 
of  those  rapid  transformations  of  his  by  which  he  instantly  becomes 
the  model  Presbyterian  minister.  He  made  a  few  remarks  upon  the 
gratitude  we  owed  to  God,  and  proposed  the  singing  of  the  Dox- 
ology  as  our  universal  expression, 

"  Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow"  was  sung — not  with 
unbounded  applause,  but  with  tender  and  tremendous  effect.  After 
a  benediction,  implored  by  Dr.  Edward  Beecher,  the  great  multi- 
tude quietly  dispersed,  and  the  Edmiston  sisters  were  no  longer 
slaves,  but  free  women. 

Since  tlie  war  Mr.  Beecher' s  oratory  has  been  called 
forth  chiefly  in  his  own  pulpit  and  on  the  lecture  plat- 
form. He  has  lectured  extensively  all  over  the  North, 
and  has  made  at  least  two  expeditions  into  the  South. 
It  is  stated  on  good  authority  that  his  beautiful  home 
in  Peekskill  was  built  out  of  the  proceeds  of  two 
years'  lectures.  He  has  generally  met  a  warm  welcome 
wherever  he  has  gone,  and  there  has  rarely  been  any- 
thing to  evoke  that  peculiar  kind  of  oratorical  power 


MR.  BEECHER'S   LECTURES.  149 

which  only  a  great  occasion  and  intense  opposition  can 
evoke.  But  he  has  spoken  everywhere  to  great  audi- 
ences, easily  filling  the  largest  houses,  and  often  leav- 
ing many  outside  unable  to  get  in.  He  has  discoursed 
on  every  uppermost  topic  in  the  public  mind  :  Recon- 
struction of  the  South ;  Education ;  the  Financial 
Question  ;  Free  Trade  ;  the  Chinese  Question  ;  Tem- 
perance ;  as  well  as  upon  all  sorts  of  moral,  social,  and 
theological  subjects.  In  these  lecture  tours  he  has 
travelled  from  St.  John's  to  the  Golden  Gate,  and  from 
Montreal  to  Memphis.  I  believe  he  has  never  visited 
the  Gulf  States.  He  lectures  at  night  and  travels  by 
day  ;  but  often  his  engagements  are  such  that  he 
drives  directly  from  the  lecture  platform  to  the  sta- 
tion, where  he  may  have  to  wait  for  an  hour  or  two 
before  his  train  arrives  and  he  gets  his  sleeping-car. 
He  sleeps,  however,  by  day  as  easily  as  by  night. 
Never  an  epicurean  or  self-indulgent  eater,  he  is  phi- 
losopher enough  to  eat  what  is  set  before  him,  asking 
no  questions — a  lesson  which  he  learned  probably  in 
his  itinerant  ministries  in  his  early  experiences  in  the 
West ;  at  all  events,  he  takes  whatever  accommoda- 
tions are  provided  for  him,  never  grumbling.  He 
rarely,  however,  consents  to  receive  hospitality, 
though  it  is  often  extended  to  him.  As  with  most 
successful  speakers,  the  drain  of  social  intercourse  un- 
fits for  the  duties  of  the  platform,  upon  which  the  lect- 
urer must  go  with  mind  undisturbed  and  undiverted 
by  previous  conversations.  He  always  carries  a  bag 
full  of  books  and  papers  ;  always  gets  the  morning 
papers  as  early  as  he  can,  but  rarely  spends  a  great 
deal  of  time  over  them.     His  mornings  on  the  cars  are 


150  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

spent  with  his  itinerant  library.  "  He  generally  has 
some  dry  old  work  on  theology,"  says  his  lecture 
agent.  "  I  have  sometimes  asked  him,  '  What  are  you 
reading  that  for  ? '  To  which  he  has  replied,  '  Well,  I 
never  can  tell  when  any  one  may  be  going  to  pitch  into 
me  ;  and  then  these  old  fellows  come  in  very  handy. 
I  read  it  and  lay  it  away  in  the  garret  where  I  can  use 
it  when  I  want  it.'  "  He  always  carries  his  Bible  with 
him  ;  is  a  continuous  student  of  it ;  often  takes  it 
out  of  his  pocket  to  read  a  passage  which  he  desires  to 
quote  in  a  friendly  discussion,  and  he  rarely  fails  to 
tarn  to  the  desired  passage  with  facility.  He  never 
delivers  the  same  lecture  twice  in  the  same  form  ; 
rarely  if  ever  uses  notes.  His  introductions  are 
often,  his  general  divisions  sometimes,  and  his  illus- 
trations always  more  or  less  varied.  Incidents  that 
have  occurred  during  the  day,  suggestions  from  the 
day's  conversation,  suggestions  from  the  day's  reading, 
are  woven  in,  or  are  added  to  the  train  of  thought,  or 
even  give  it  a  new  form  and  color.  He  never  speaks 
to  entertain,  though  he  never  speaks  mthout  enter- 
taining ;  but  I  doubt  whether  he  could  make  a  speech 
without  a  definite  and  earnest  moral  purpose.  I  have 
sometimes  heard  him  try — in  speeches  of  reply  to  com- 
plimentary allusions  on  public  occasions,  or  after- 
dinner  gatherings,  and  never  yet  heard  a  success.  He 
is  not  a  good  after-dinner  speaker  unless  he  takes  a 
theme  and  aims  at  a  result ;  then  sometimes  his  suc- 
cess is  brilliant.  Such  was  the  case  at  the  dinner  to 
Herbert  Spencer  in  New  York  in  1882.  He  was  the 
last  speaker  of  the  evening.  It  was  late  ;  the  audience 
were  already  weary  ;  and  the  speeches  up  to  that  time 


THE  HERBERT  SPENCER  DINNER.         151 

liad  been  purely  and  coldly  scientific,  unrelieved  by 
any  elements  of  emotion,  and,  except  in  the  casual 
remarks  of  the  chairman  and  the  single  speech  of 
Carl  Schurz,  unillumined  by  any  wit  or  humor.  Be- 
ginning with  a  play  of  humor  as  irresistible  as  it  was 
spontaneous,  Mr.  Beecher  secured  the  sympathy  of 
his  audience  in  the  first  few  sentences.  Irradiating 
his  address  throughout  with  it  in  the  most  unexpected 
places,  he  kept  alive  and  alert  the  interest  and  atten- 
tion. Gradually,  insensibly  to  them,  perhaps  insensi- 
bly to  himself,  he  lifted  his  auditors  above  the  cold, 
dry,  intellectual  light  in  which  the  meeting  had  been 
kept,  into  the  warm  and  sunny  atmosphere  of  spiritual 
and  emotional  life.  When,  as  he  drew  toward  the 
close,  he  appealed  to  the  personal  consciousness  of  his 
hearers  to  confirm  Paul's  testimony  to  the  strife  for- 
ever going  on  in  all  awakened  souls  between  the  lower 
animal  and  the  higher  spiritual  nature,  the  responses 
of  "That's  so,"  like  Amen  in  a  Methodist  meeting, 
came  from  different  quarters  of  the  room  ;  when,  with 
a  voice  tremulous  with  emotion,  he  expressed  his  own 
personal  sense  of  obligation  to  Mr.  Spencer  for  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  light  and  strength,  conferred  in 
the  new  vantage-ground  given  to  theologic  thought, 
the  audience  showed  its  sympathy  by  its  breathless 
and  almost  solemn  silence  ;  and  when  he  had  closed, 
with  good  wishes  for  their  guest,  phrased  in  the  form 
of  a  prayer  to  "  Him  who  holds  the  stars  in  his 
hands,"  the  whole  assembly  rose  to  its  feet,  and  with 
cheers  and  waving  of  handkerchiefs  greeted  both  the 
orator  and  the  guest. 
This  is  perhaps  a  digression  ;  yet  it  serves  to  empha- 

10 


152  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

size  the  fact  that  an  earnest  and  definite  purpose  is 
always  necessary  to  evoke  Mr.  Beecher's  power ;  and 
he  is  never  so  powerful  as  when  opposition  makes  that 
purpose  most  definite  and  most  earnest.  Of  this  his  lect- 
ure course  on  the  Pacific  Coast  affords  another  example. 
His  views  on  the  Chinese  Question  were  pronounced 
and  had  been  widely  circulated.  He  had  preached 
and  lectured  on  it  in  the  East,  and  his  utterances  had 
of  course  preceded  him.  The  Pacific  papers  were  all 
opposed  to  him.  But  though,  it  is  needless  to  say,  he 
neither  modified  his  views  nor  toned  down  his  utter- 
ances, he  lectured  to  immense  audiences.  Engaged  to 
deliver  a  course  of  four  lectures  in  San  Francisco,  he 
delivered  nine,  the  proceeds  of  the  last  one  being 
$4200.  His  lectures  were  published  verbatim,  and  it 
was  afterward  declared  that  he  had  done  more  than 
any  one  had  ever  done  to  check  and  modify  the  public 
sentiment  against  the  Chinese,  which  race  prejudice 
and  political  interest  had  done  so  much  to  inflame, 
and  religion  had  unfortunately  done  so  little  to 
allay. 

The  most  striking  illustration,  however,  of  this 
effect  of  opposition  to  rouse  into  full  play  all  Mr. 
Beecher's  powers,  is  afforded  by  his  experiences  in 
Richmond,  Virginia,  where  he  went  to  lecture  in  Jan- 
uary, 1877.  Mr.  Pond,  his  lecture  agent,  was  with 
Mm,  and  thus  tells  the  story  of  his  experience  and 
Ms  victory : 

/-■  In  all  the  five  hundred  lectures  which  I  have  heard  from  Mr. 
Beecher — and  I  have  travelled  with  him  over  200,000  miles — there 
was  no  one  so  remarkable  as  that  delivered  in  Richmond.  I  had  sold 
his  lecture  for  $500  to  a  man  by  the  name  of  Powell,  who  owned 


IN   RICHMOND,  VIRGINIA.  155 

the  theatre.  "We  went  to  Washington  January  23d,  1877,  and  I 
was  telegraphed  by  him  that  we  must  not  come,  as  Mr.  Beecher 
would  not  be  allowed  to  speak  in  Richmond.  I  said  nothing  to 
Mr.  Beecher  about  it,  but  telegraphed  Powell  that  we  should  be 
there.  As  we  arrived  at  Richmond  in  the  morning,  he  came  aboard 
the  train  and  said  to  me,  "  It  won't  do  for  Mr.  Beecher  to  speak 
here,"  and  he  showed  me  a  four-page  circular  issued  by  a  State 
official,  the  heading  of  which  ran  something  like  this  : 

"  Shall  Beecher  be  allowed  to  speak  in  Richmond  ?  The  Brother 
of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  the  Author  of  '  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  ! ' 
Henry  "Ward  Beecher,  who  sent  the  Sharps  Rifles  to  Kansas  ! 
Henry  "Ward  Beecher,  who  is  famous  for  drawing  the  Bead,  and 
Probably  is  as  Liable  to  Draw  a  Bead  on  one  of  His  Auditors  as 
Any  !  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who  Helped  to  Dig  the  Graves  of  Mill- 
ions of  our  Best  Sons  of  the  South  !  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who  has 
been  False  to  his  Country,  False  to  his  Religion,  and  False  to  his 
God  !     Shall  this  man  be  allowed  to  speak  in  Richmond  ?  ?  ? " 

When  we  got  into  town  the  newsboys  were  selling  anti-Beecher 
poetry  and  songs  on  the  streets.  We  reached  the  hotel  ;  Mr, 
Beecher  registered  and  left  the  room  in  the  midst  of  general  tittering 
and  sneering.  When  he  went  into  the  dining-room,  even  the  waiters 
tittered  and  sneered,  and  it  was  hard  to  get  waited  on.  We  were 
simply  insulted  in  every  way,  but  Mr.  Beecher  said  nothing.  I 
remember  as  we  walked  out  of  the  dining-room  he  caught  up  a  little 
golden-haired  baby,  when  a  lady  rushed  up,  and  snatching  the  child 
away  ran  off  with  it.  Mr.  Beecher  went  up  to  his  room,  while  I  went 
up  to  the  theatre  to  see  Powell. 

Affairs  went  quietly  enough  that  day,  and  at  night,  when  the 
lecture  was  to  come  off,  we  went  up  together  to  the  theatre.  The 
Board  of  Trade,  the  Tobacco  Board,  and  the  Legislature  then  in  ses- 
sion had  all  by  resolution  agreed  that  none  of  their  members  would 
go.  But  when  it  came  time  to  open  the  doors,  as  every  man  knew 
his  fellow  was  not  going,  hs  went,  and  as  a  consequence  the  Gov- 
ernor was  there,  and  all  the  legislators,  and  they  were  having  quite  a 
laugh  at  each  other's  expense.  The  house  was  filled  with  men,  and 
they  were  a  noisy  lot ;  but  Mr.  Powell  had  secured  a  detail  of  thirty 


156  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

policemen  to  insure  quiet.  After  I  entered  the  stage-door — there 
were  five  or  six  policemen  to  keep  the  crowd  back — I  heard  them 
making  a  great  noise  in  front,  and  Powell  came  to  me  and  said, 
"  Don't  you  introduce  him.  You'll  be  egged  as  sure  as  you  go  out 
there."  Mr.  Beecher  knew  that  it  was  to  be  a  wild  meeting,  but  at 
last  said  to  me,  "  Well,  I'm  ready,"  and  together  we  went  out  and 
took  seats  on  the  stage. 

As  we  sat  down,  the  vast  crowd  of  men  and  the  few  ladies  in  the 
gallery  commenced  to  applaud,  and  some  turbulent  characters  gave 
a  regular  rebel  yell.  I  rose  at  last  and  introduced  Mr.  Beecher, 
merely  saying  that  there  was  no  act  of  my  life  that  gave  me  such 
pleasure  as  introducing  so  great  and  good  a  man  as  Henry  Ward 
Beecher.  I  sat  down,  and  they  went  at  it  again.  We  speak  of  a 
man's  rising  to  an  emergency.  He  stood  up  there,  in  his  old  way, 
and  let  them  yell  until  they  got  tired.  He  was  to  lecture  on  Ha7'd 
Times,  and  his  first  words  were  that  there  was  a  law  of  God,  a  com- 
mon and  natural  law,  that  brains  and  money  controlled  the  universe. 
He  said,  "  This  law  cannot  be  changed  even  by  the  big  Virginia 
Legislature,  which  opens  with  prayer  and  closes  with  a  benedic- 
tion." As  the  legislators  were  all  there  in  a  body,  the  laugh  went 
around.  It  was  not  five  minutes  before  the  house  was  clapping.  Mr. 
Beecher  talked  two  hours  and  a  half  to  them,  and  of  all  the  speeches 
that  I  ever  heard  that  was  the  best  one.  He  said,  first,  he  would 
eulogize  Virginia  and  the  bravery  of  the  men  of  the  South,  and  then 
he  would  tell  them  just  what  they  did  that  was  wrong.  In  his 
peroration  he  eulogized  Virginia  as  a  commonwealth  ;  she  who  had 
bred  her  sons  for  Presidents  ;  how  great  she  was,  etc.,  etc.  ;  and  got 
them  all  perfectly  wrought  up,  and  then  he  continued  :  "  But 
what  a  change  when  she  came  to  breeding  her  sons  for  the  market !  " 
Then  he  would  draw  that  terrible  picture  of  slavery  and  its  effects, 
and  they  had  to  sit  quietly  and  take  it  all.  After  the  lecture  we 
left  the  theatre  quickly,  got  into  a  carriage  and  went  down  to  the 
hotel.  Then,  once  in  his  room,  Mr.  Beecher  sat  back  in  his  chair 
and  laughed,  as  much  as  to  say,  "  We  have  captured  Richmond, 
haven't  we  ?"  Then  came  a  knock  at  the  door,  and  as  it  opened, 
there  in  the  hall  stood  a  crowd  of  these  gentlemen  ;   they  walked 


IN   MR.  MOODY'S   CHURCH.  157 

right  in,  and  the  spokesman  said,  "  We  want  to  thank  you  for  this 

lecture,  Mr.  Beecher.    This  is  the  Hon. ,  and  this  is  the  Hon. , 

and  Lieutenant-Governor ,"  and  so  on,  introducing  everybody  ; 

and  "  We  want  you  to  lecture  here  to-morrow  night  for  us.  Why, 
this  is  good  enough  for  our  wives  to  hear."  Mr.  Beecher  stood  up, 
and  said,  "  Gentlemen,  I  am  a  piece  of  artillery  here  that  Mr.  Pond 
pulls  around  and  touches  off  when  he  wants  to."  At  this  they 
showed  hundred-dollar  bills,  and  offered  anything  if  he  would  only 
lecture  again,  but  as  he  was  booked  for  Washington  the  next  night 
it  was  out  of  the  question,  and  he  had  to  refuse.  They  came  in 
crowds  the  next  morning  at  seven  o'clock  to  see  him  off.  ^ 

Mr.  Beecher' s  lecture-tours  are  generally  so  arranged 
as  to  enable  Mm  to  get  to  Ms  home  in  time  for  his 
Sabbath  services  ;  indeed  he  is  rarely  absent  from  his 
Friday  evening  meeting,  often  travelling  night  and  day 
to  reach  it.  But  when  he  is  absent  he  is  always  ready 
to  preach  on  the  Sabbath,  and  no  consideration  of  the 
possible  effect  of  such  a  course  in  cheapening  the 
tickets  to  his  lecture  on  Monday  night  has  the  slight- 
est influence  on  him.  It  is  rare,  however,  that  he 
preaches  when  away  from  home  more  than  one  sermon 
on  the  Sabbath.  He  is  a  believer  in  the  one-sermon 
theory,  holding  that  it  is  enough  for  the  hearer  and 
quite  enough  for  the  preacher.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  add  that  he  always  has  more  invitations  than  he  can 
accept,  and  more  auditors  than  he  can  address.  One 
of  the  most  notable  of  these  preaching  occasions  was 
that  at  Mr.  Moody' s  church  in  Chicago,  in  the  winter, 
I  think  it  was,  of  1878-79.  A  friend  who  was  with 
Mm  says  :  "I  rose  early  to  go  to  the  church,  and  as 
we  started  out  from  the  hotel  noticed  people  hurrying 
up  from  every  quarter,  though  it  was  nearly  or  quite  a 
mile  to  the  church.     As  to  reaching  the  church  itself, 


158  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

that  was  an  impossibility  ;  one  could  not  get  within  a 
block  of  it.  Street  preachers  were  scattered  about  ad- 
dressing the  crowd,  which  was  estimated  to  number 
not  less  than  fifty  thousand.  The  sermon  itself  is  de- 
scribed by  some  who  heard  it  as  worthy  of  such  an 
occasion." 

An  analysis  of  some  of  Mr.  Beecher's  elements  of 
power  as  a  preacher  has  already  been  given  in  a  pre- 
ceding chapter.  The  same  characteristics  of  thought, 
of  imagination,  of  common-sense,  of  sympathy,  of  hu- 
mor, mark  him  as  a  lecturer  and  an  orator ;  though 
the  public  platform  allows  a  somewhat  greater  freedom 
of  action,  an  unlimited  range  of  topic,  and  a  greater 
opportunity  for  a  display  of  eloquence  or  wit  than  is 
ordinarily  afforded  in  the  pulpit.  An  analysis  of  one 
is  in  most  respects  an  analysis  of  the  other.  The 
same  instruments  of  power  are  wielded  in  both  in- 
stances, though  with  a  somewhat  different  spirit,  and 
for  different  ends.  The  spontaneity  of  thought,  the 
soundness  of  judgment,  the  common-sense,  the  deep 
sympathy,  the  responsiveness  of  feeling,  which  char- 
acterize his  preaching  also  mark  his  oratory.  To  these 
traits  Dr.  Storrs  adds,  in  his  address  at  the  silver 
wedding : 

"  His  wonderful  animal  vigor  ;  his  fulness  of  bodily 
power ;  his  voice,  which  can  thunder  and  whisper 
alike  ;  his  sympathy  with  nature,  which  is  so  intimate 
and  confidential  that  she  tells  him  all  her  secrets,  and 
supplies  him  with  continual  images  ;  and,  above  all, 
put  as  the  crown  upon  the  whole,  that  enthusiasm  for 
Christ  to  which  he  has  himself  referred  this  evening, 
and  which  has  certainly  been  the  animating  i^ower  in 


ELEMENTS   OF   POWER.  159 

Ms  ministry — the  impression  upon  Ms  soul  that  he, 
having  seen  the  glory  of  the  Son  of  God,  has  been  set 
here  to  reflect  that  glory  upon  others  ;  to  inspire  their 
minds  with  it ;  to  touch  their  hearts  with  it ;  to  kindle 
their  souls  with  it,  and  so  to  prepare  them  for  the 
heavenly  realm— put  all  these  together,  and  you  have 
some  of  the  elements  of  power  in  this  great  Preacher 
— not  all  of  them,  but  some,  snatched  hurriedly  from 
the  great  treasure-house.  There  you  have  a  few,  at 
any  rate,  of  the  traits  and  forces  of  him  whose  power 
has  chained  you,  and  quickened  and  blessed  you,  dur- 
ing all  these  years." 

*  -it  *  *  *  * 

"Then,  when  you  unite  with  these  other  things  of 
which  I  have  spoken,  as  elements  of  his  power,  a  some- 
what vehement  and  combative  nature,  that  always  gets 
quickened  and  fired  by  opposition,  as  you  have  found, 
and  that  never  is  so  self-possessed,  so  serene,  and  so 
victorious,  as  when  the  clamor  is  loudest  around  him 
and  the  fight  is  fiercest — and  if  you  add  very  fixed 
and  positive  ideas  on  all  the  great  ethical,  social,  and 
public  questions  of  the  time — there  you  have  the 
champion  Reform-fighter  of  the  last  twenty-five  years. 
I  never  saw  a  man  that  it  was  more  dangerous,  on  the 
whole,  to  arouse  by  opposing  him — a  thing  which, 

therefore,  I  never  do. " 

****** 

"Well,  when  Mr.  Beecher  was  in  England,  they 
made  volcanoes  around  him,  on  no  small  scale,  at 
Liverpool,  at  Manchester,  and  the  other  places.  But 
that  fluent  thought  within,  and  that  fluent  eloquence 
on  his  lips,  put  out  the  volcanoes  ;  or,  if  they  did  not 


160  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

put  tliem  ont,  they  made  the  fire  shoot  the  other  way,, 
till  the  ground  became  too  hot  for  the  English  Govern- 
ment to  stand  on,  if  it  would  permit  its  evident  sym- 
pathy for  the  Southern  Confederacy  to  be  formulated 
into  law." 

It  is  thus  that  a  brother  preacher,  himself  an  orator, 
has  characterized  Mr,  Beecher's  oratory,  although  he 
confesses  himself  no  more  able  to  do  so  than  is  a  man 
to  describe  Niagara  having  never  seen  it. 

These  traits  are  but  a  few  that  have  conspired  in 
making  him  one  of  the  greatest  of  modern  orators. 
"His  power,"  to  close  the  chapter  with  another  extract 
from  the  same  address,  "comes  from  many  sources. 
It  is  like  a  rushing  royal  river  which  has  its  birthplace 
in  a  thousand  springs.  It  is  like  a  magnificent  oak, 
which  has  its  grand  uplift  of  trunk  and  stem,  and  its 
vast  sweep  of  branches,  by  reason  of  the  multitudinous 
roots  which  strike  down  deep,  and  spread  through  the 
soil  in  every  direction.  These  supply  the  mighty 
timbers  for  the  battle  ships  and  the  building  !" 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MR.    BEECHER   IN   ENGLAND     DURING    THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

It  is  not  easy  to  get  "  reminiscences"  out  of  Mr. 
Beecher.  He  rarely  talks  of  himself,  even  to  his 
intimate  friends  ;  and  he  is  far  more  interested  in  pres- 
ent and  future  questions  than  in  the  problems  of  the 
past  already  solved.  But  he  had  at  various  times 
promised  good-naturedly  to  different  personal  friends, 
that  he  v^ould  give  them  an  account  of  his  English 
experiences.  One  evening  he  yielded  to  their  com- 
bined pertinacity,  and  to  a  group  of  twenty  or  so  in 
his  parlors  he  gave  the  long-promised  narrative.  One 
of  his  auditors  contrived  to  have  a  short-hand  reporter 
present  for  the  benefit  of  a  wider  circle.  This  report 
he  has  put  into  my  hands,  and  with  some  slight  revis- 
ion it  is  printed  here,  without,  however,  any  revision 
from  Mr.  Beecher. 

In  1863  I  found  myself  pretty  well  worn  out.  I  had 
been  lecturing  for  the  three  years  before  the  war  came 
on.  I  was  particularly  busy  in  the  year  1860,  but  grew 
more  so  after  the  election  of  Lincoln  before  his  inau- 
guration, which  was  really  one  of  the  most  critical 
periods  in  the  history  of  the  war,  when  there  was  a 
demand  made  all  through  the  North  by  the  Democratic 
party  that  we  should  throw  up  the  election,  and  when 
there  were  a  great  many  men  that  were  very  uncertain 


162  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

whether  we  had  better  not  do  it,  so  that  I  preached 
Sunday  night  after  Sunday  night  and  went  all  over 
the  North  lecturing  to  sustain  the  courage  of  the 
people  and  to  hold  things  up,  as  it  were.  Then  came 
on  the  war,  and  you  all  remember  that^  and  the  intense 
■excitement  of  the  times,  and  how  the  first  three  years 
were  largely  years  of  defeat.  In  the  spring  of  1863  I 
concluded  that  two  or  three  months  in  Europe  would 
give  me  more  power  to  serve  the  public  than  if  I  stayed 
St  home  ;  so  with  Dr.  John  Raymond  and  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Holme,  now  a  Baptist  clergyman  in  New  York  City,  I 
•embarked  and  went  to  England. 

It  has  been  often  asked  whether  I  was  sent  by  the 
government.  The  government  took  no  stock  in  me  at 
that  time.  Seward  was  in  the  ascendancy.  I  had  been 
pounding  Lincoln  in  the  early  years  of  the  war,  and  I 
don' t  believe  there  was  a  man  down  there,  unless  it  was 
Mr.  Chase,  who  would  have  trusted  me  with  anything. 
At  any  rate,  I  went  on  my  own  responsibility,  and 
with  no  one  behind  me  except  my  church.  They  told 
me  they  would  pay  my  expenses  and  sent  me  off. 
When  I  reached  England  and  saw  what  was  the  condi- 
tion of  public  feeling  there,  I  refused  to  make  any 
speech  and  declined  all  invitations.  I  would  not  go 
Tinder  the  roof  of  any  man  who  was  not  a  friend  of  the 
North  in  this  struggle,  and  throughout  the  whole  of 
my  stay  in  England  I  refused  to  let  any  man  pay  one 
penny  for  me.  I  never  would  let  any  one  pay  my 
expenses  on  the  road  nor  my  hotel  bills,  nor  would  I 
go  as  guest  to  the  house  of  any  man,  unless  he  had 
been  forward  to  promote  our  cause.  Everywhere  my 
answer  was,  ' '  My  church  pays  my  expenses,  and  I  can- 


ARRIVAL   IN   ENGLAND.  163 

not  afford  to  take  any  hospitality  or  money  from  the 
enemies  of  the  North,  and  I  won't  take  it."  WeU,  as 
I  lay  on  my  back  on  board  the  ship  going  over — I  can 
scarcely  get  out  of  my  berth  at  sea,  and  am  only  in 
tolerable  comfort  when  I  am  lying  on  my  back — I 
turned  the  matter  over  in  my  mind  and  said  to  myself : 
"  I  have  no  doubt  whatever  of  the  final  success  of  this 
cause,  and  I  am  perfectly  certain  that  slavery  is  going 
with  it.  I  have  been  for  at  least  twenty-five  or  thirty 
years  studying  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
the  history  of  the  debates,  and  laying  up  all  manner 
of  material  for  discussion  on  the  subject  of  slavery, 
and  now  we  have  got  so  far  along  that  this  question,  I 
suppose,  is  settled,  and  all  this  material  must  go  to 
profit  and  loss.  I  never  shall  want  to  use  it  again  ;  so 
let  it  go."  Whereas,  in  point  of  fact,  all  these  accu- 
mulations and  investigations  were  brought  about  by 
direct  providence  in  an  unforeseen  way,  as  it  were,  to 
enable  me  to  go  through  the  campaign  that  I  after- 
ward entered  into  in  England. 

I  reached  England,  at  the  Mersey,  in  a  storm.  A 
little  tug-boat  came  off  with  Mr.  Charles  Duncan  on 
board,  and  a  committee  from  Manchester  with  a  request 
to  have  me  lecture  there.  I  was  of  the  color,  I  sup- 
pose, of  a  collier  just  out  of  the  mine.  I  had  been 
lying  under  the  smoke-stack,  and  my  old  hat,  that  was 
white  when  I  started,  was  now  of  a  doubtful  color.  I 
was  so  thoroughly  indignant  at  the  state  of  England 
— at  the  course  that  had  been  pursued  there — that  I 
had  made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  neither  preach, 
lecture,  speak,  nor  do  anything  else  of  a  public  charac- 
ter.    I  had  seen  Dr.  Campbell,  who  was  a  personal 


164  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

friend  of  mine  and  always  had  been  an  ardent  one,  and 
who,  in  anticipation  of  my  coming,  had  said,  "  Mr. 
Beecher  thinks  he  can  twist  this  English  public  around 
his  finger  as  easy  as  he  does  the  Americans,  but  he  will 
find  he  has  a  different  set  of  men  to  deal  with ;"  he 
also  put  in  here  a  very  ungenerous  paragraph  that 
' '  Mr.  Beecher  is  a  man  who  at  a  time  when  his  coun- 
try is  in  the  greatest  distress  finds  it  convenient  to  take 
a  vacation  and  comes  to  Europe  to  enjoy  himself." 
This  remark  and  others  of  the  same  kind  were  soon 
abroad.  I  went  right  to  Charlie  Duncan's  house  in 
Liverpool,  and  afterward  made  with  my  companions  a 
little  tour  in  England,  violating  twice  my  determina- 
tion not  to  speak  in  England.  This  was  at  Glasgow 
and  at  London,  and  was  before  I  went  on  the  Conti- 
nent. I  attended  a  temperance  breakfast  in  Glasgow 
— I  think  it  was  possibly  Edinburgh — under  the  pledge 
that  nothing  should  be  reported,  and  that  what  was 
said  there  should  be  considered  simply  as  social  inter- 
changes and  should  not  go  into  the  newspapers.  But 
the  next  morning  my  speech  was  out  in  all  the  papers, 
was  published  all  abroad,  and  was  sent  back  to  this 
country. 

The  other  exception  I  made  was  in  London.  The 
Congregational  clergymen  of  London  and  vicinity  were 
very  urgent  that  I  should  meet  them  at  a  breakfast, 
and  I  at  last  consented.  We  had  there,  I  should  think, 
a  hundred  and  fifty  persons,  and  after  the  eating  was 
o^er  and  some  speeches  had  been  made,  I  was  called 
up  and  made  a  statement  expressing  my  indignation 
at  the  position  of  the  Congregational  clergymen  of 
England  in  view  of  this  war.     The  key-note  of  it  was 


ADDRESS  BEFORE  CONGREGATIONAL  CLERGYMEN.      165 

that  they  were  the  men  who  were  seeking  to  know  the 
signs  of  the  times,  and  to  have  the  interpretation  of  the 
feeling  of  the  age,  and  that  they,  as  a  whole  body,  had 
gone  wrong  and  had  thrown  their  sympathy  on  the 
side  virtually  of  slavery  and  against  liberty.*  I  said 
to  myself,  "They  will  say,  of  course,  that  I  am  an 
enthusiast,  and  that  this  speech  is  to  be  taken  with  a 
good  deal  of  allowance ;  so  that  if  I  can  clinch  the 
point  with  a  speech  from  a  calm-minded  man  it  will  help 
the  cause."  Therefore,  I  said  to  the  chairman  that  Dr. 
John  Raymond,  President  of  Yassar  College,  was  with 
me  and  would  add  some  views  of  his  own.  Dr.  John 
Raymond  was  a  man  not  easily  excited,  but  when  he 
did  get  kindled  up  !  I  sat  and  looked  at  him  in  per- 
fect amazement.  He  went  at  them  like  a  hundred 
earthquakes,  with  a  whirlwind  or  two  thrown  in.  It 
was  a  magnificent  speech,  of  such  towering  indignation 
as  I  never  heard  before  or  since. 

Soon  after  I  was  visited  by  the  Anti-Slavery  Union 
— I  think  that  is  the  name.  There  were  in  London, 
Liverpool,  Manchester,  and  almost  all  the  princijDal 
cities,  an  elect  few  who  understood  the  conflict,  and 
who  took  the  side  of  the  North  and  organized  to 
attempt  to  change  the  public  sentiment  of  England. 
They  endeavored  to  persuade  me  to  make  some 
speeches,  but  I  refused. 

I  started  from  England,  refusing  to  make  any 
engagements  or  say  anything  iDublicly.  I  was  in  a 
towering  indignation.     Almost  every  man  in  England 

*  Rev.  Henry  Allon,  of  London,  ■who  heard  this  speech,  afterward  said 
that  it  was  the  best  speech  that  Mr.  Beecher  made  in  England. 


166  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

who  rode  in  a  first-class  car  was  our  enemy.  Tlie  great 
majority  of  professional  men  were  our  enemies. 
Almost  all  the  Quakers  were  against  us.  All  the  Con- 
gregational ministers  in  England — not  in  Wales — were 
either  indifferent  or  lukewarm,  directly  opposed.  The 
government  was  our  enemy.  It  was  only  the  common 
people  and  mostly  the  people  who  had  no  vote  that 
were  on  our  side.  Everywhere  the  atmosphere  was 
adverse.  In  Manchester  our  American  merchants  and 
men  sent  out  to  buy  were  afraid,  and  knuckled  down  to 
the  public  feeling.  The  storm  in  the  air  was  so  por- 
tentous that  they  did  not  dare  to  undertake  to  resist 
it.  JSTo  man  ever  knows  what  his  country  is  to  him 
until  he  has  gone  abroad  and  heard  it  everywhere  de- 
nounced and  sneered  at.  I  had  ten  men's  wrath  in  me, 
and  my  own  share  is  tolerably  large,  at  the  attitude 
assunied  all  around  me  against  my  country. 

We  went  on  the  continent,  and  I  sunk  everything 
out  of  sight,  determined  that  I  would  forget  the  whole 
thing,  and  for  two  or  three  months  I  wandered  through 
France,  Germany,  Switzerland,  and  Italy,  and  came 
around  to  Paris  again.  This  was  before  the  ocean 
cable  was  laid.  While  at  the  Grand  Hotel  at  Paris, 
word  came  of  the  victory  of  Grant  at  Vicksburg.  I 
got  the  news  on  Sunday  morning.  I  went  to  church, 
but  I  walked  in  the  air.  I  took  a  seat  in  our  minister's 
pew — Mr.  Dayton' s.  His  daughter,  a  young  woman  of 
twenty-two  or  twenty-three,  and  a  young  friend  of 
about  the  same  age  were  seated  together,  and  after  the 
preliminary  services  were  over  and  the  minister  was 
giving  some  notices  for  the  week,  I  turned  to  her  and 
said,  "  Grant  has  taken  Vicksburg  I"     She  started  up 


CAPTURE   OF  VICKSBURG.  167 

and  then  she  whispered  to  her  friend,  and  says  to  me 
again,  "Is  it  true  ?"  "  Yes,"  said  I,  "it  is  certain." 
Then  we  rose  up  when  the  hymn  had  been  given  out. 
She  stood  by  my  side  and  began  to  sing,  and  as  she- 
finished  one  line  she  broke  into  a  flood  of  tears  and 
down  she  sat,  and  down  sat  the  other,  and  they  just 
shook,  they  were  so  overwhelmed  with  feeling.  1 
thought  that  was  very  good  for  Sunday  morning  ;  but 
about  noon  George  Jones,  of  the  New  York  Times, 
came  over  from  America,  bringing  the  news  of  the  other 
great  victory  at  the  same  time — Gettysburg. 

Now  Jones  told  me  about  it,  and  I  was  so  elated  that 
I  called  a  cab  and  rode  around  to  Dayton's  house.  He 
had  gone  to  his  room  to  take  a  siesta,  and  I  got  him 
up  and  told  him  of  the  second  instalment  of  good 
news,  and  the  whole  family  were  clustered  together  to 
hear  it.  I  made  a  short  stay,  and  going  downstairs, 
who  should  I  meet  but  Jones  himself,  coming  up  to 
tell  the  news.  I  was  very  sorry  to  think  I  had  fore- 
stalled him — was  mortified,  in  fact,  because  it  was  his 
privilege  to  have  given  the  news  first,  as  I  had  received 
it  from  him  myself  ;  but  he  had  not  been  quick 
enough.  In  the  Grand  Hotel  there  was  a  great  glass- 
covered  court,  and  as  I  would  stand  at  the  landing 
and  look  down  there  would  always  be  a  group  of 
Southerners  in  the  left-hand  corner.  It  had  come  to 
be  a  resort  of  theirs,  and  there  were  ever  so  many  there. 
Up  to  this  time  when  I  had  walked  through  I  would 
be  insulted  in  every  way — by  whistles  and  sneering  re- 
marks, etc. — and  they  would  tell  the  servants  to  carry 
messages  to  me,  which  I  learned  afterward  the  pro- 
prietor would  not  allow  to  be  sent.     As  I  went  in  this 


168  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER 

day  of  the  double  victory  there  they  sat,  a  dozen  or 
fifteen  of  them.  I  had  never  taken  any  notice  of  them 
hitherto — not  the  least — but  after  I  got  this  nev^s  I 
■walked  in  and  strode  right  down  in  front  of  them  with- 
out saying  a  word,  bnt  carrying  my  head  high,  I  can 
tell  you,  and  went  upstairs  to  my  room.  I  never  saw 
one  of  them  there  afterward,  and  I  was  there  myself 
several  days. 

I  came  over  to  England  again  and  was  met  in  Lon- 
don by  the  same  gentlemen  who  had  urged  me  to  make 
addresses.  I  said,  "  No  ;  I  am  going  home  in  Septem- 
ber. I  don't  want  to  have  anything  to  do  with  Eng- 
land." But  their  statement  made  my  resolution  give 
way  and  changed  my  programme  entirely.  It  was 
this  :  "  Mr.  Beecher,  we  have  been  counted  as  the  off- 
scouring,  because  we  have  taken  up  the  part  of  the 
North.  We  have  sacrificed  ourselves  in  your  behalf, 
and  now  if  you  go  home  and  show  us  no  favor  or  help, 
they  will  overwhelm  us.  They  will  say,  '  Even  your 
friends  in  America  despise  you,'  and  we  shall  be 
nowhere,  and  we  think  it  is  rather  a  hard  return.  Be- 
sides," said  they,  "there  is  a  movement  on  foot  that 
is  going  to  be  very  disastrous,  if  it  is  not  headed  off." 
To  my  amazement  I  found  that  the  unvoting  English 
possessed  great  power  in  England  ;  a  great  deal  more 
power,  in  fact,  than  if  they  had  had  a  vote.  The  aris- 
tocracy and  the  government  felt :  "  These  men  feel  that 
they  have  no  political  privileges,  and  we  mnst  admin- 
ister with  the  strictest  regard  to  their  feelings  or  there 
will  be  a  revolution."  And  they  were  all  the  time 
under  the  influence  of  that  feeling.  Parliament  would 
at  any  time  for  three  years  have  voted  for  the  South 


AERANGING   FOR   THE   ENGLISH    SPEECHES.  169 

against  tlie  North,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  fear  of 
these  common  people  who  did  not  vote.  A  plan, 
therefore,  was  laid  to  hold  great  public  meetings  dur- 
ing all  that  autumn  and  early  winter  among  the  labor- 
ing masses,  to  change  their  feeling,  and  if  that  atmos- 
pheric change  could  be  brought  about.  Parliament 
would  very  soon  have  done  what  it  w^as  afraid  to  do, 
but  wanted  to  do  all  the  time — declare  for  the  Southern 
Confederacy.  The  committee  said,  "  If  you  can 
lecture  for  us  you  will  head  off  this  whole  movement." 

Those  considerations  were  such  that  I  linally  yielded. 
I  consented  at  first  to  speak  at  Manchester  ;  and  very 
soon  it  was  a^Tanged  that  I  was  to  speak  at  Liverpool 
also,  and  out  of  that  grew  an  arrangement  for  Glasgow 
and  Edinburgh,  and  then  for  London.  There  was  a 
plan  for  Birmingham  that  failed. 

Dr.  John  Raymond  could  not  stay  and  went  home, 
and  I  was  left  alone  ;  I  think  I  never  was  so  lonesome 
and  never  suffered  so  much  as  I  did  for  the  week  tliat 
I  was  in  London  before  my  tour  began.  I  had  been 
making  the  tour  of  Scotland,  and  came  down  to  Man- 
chester just  one  or  two  days  in  advance  of  the  appoint- 
ment. The  two  men  that  met  me  were  John  Escort 
and  young  Watts.  His  father  was  Sir  Something 
Watts,  and  had  the  largest  business  house  in  Central 
England.  He  was  a  young  man  just  recently  married, 
and  Escort  was  the  very  beau  ideal  of  a  sturdy  Eng- 
lishman, with  very  few  words,  but  plucky  enough  for 
a  backer  against  the  whole  world  They  met  me  at 
the  station,  and  I  saw  that  there  was  something  on  their 
minds.  Before  I  had  walked  with  them  twenty  steps, 
Watts,  I  think  it  was,  said,  "  Of  course  you  see  there  is 
11 


170  HENRY   WARD   BEECHEK. 

.  a  great  deal  of  excitement  here. "  The  streets  were  all 
placarded  in  blood-red  letters,  and  my  friends  were 
very  silent  and  seemed  to  be  looking  at  me  to  see  if  I 
would  flinch.  I  always  feel  happy  when  I  hear  of  a, 
storm,  and  I  looked  at  them  and  said,  "  Well,  are  you 
going  to  back  down  ?"  ''  No,"  said  they,  "  we  didn't 
know  how  you  would  feel."  "  Well,"  said  I,  "  you'll 
find  out  how  I  am  going  to  feel.  I'm  going  to  be 
heard,  and  if  not  now  I'm  going  to  be  by-and-by.  I 
won't  leave  England  until  I  have  been  heard  !"  You 
never  saw  two  fellows'  faces  clear  off  so.  They  looked 
happy. 

I  went  to  my  hotel,  and  when  the  day  came  on 
which  I  was  to  make  my  first  speech,  I  struck  out  the 
notes  of  my  speech  in  the  morning  ;  and  then  came  up 
a  kind  of  horror — I  don' t  know  whether  I  can  do  any- 
thing with  an  English  audience — I  have  never  had  any 
experience  with  an  English  audience.  My  American 
ways,  which  are  all  well  enough  with  Americans,  may 
utterly  fail  here,  and  a  failure  in  the  cause  of  my 
country  now  and  here  is  horrible  beyond  conception 
to  me  !  I  think  I  never  went  through  such  a  struggle 
of  darkness  and  suffering  iii  all  my  life  as  I  did  that 
afternoon.  It  was  about  the  going  down  of  the  sun 
that  God  brought  me  to  that  state  in  which  I  said, 
''  Thy  will  be  done.  I  am  willing  to  be  annihilated,  I 
am  willing  to  fail  if  the  Lord  wants  me  to."  I  gave  it 
all  up  into  the  hands  of  Gf-od,  and  rose  up  in  a  state  of 
peace  and  of  serenity  simply  unspeakable,  and  when 
the  coach  came  to  take  me  down  to  Manchester  Hall  I 
felt  no  disturbance  nor  dreamed  of  anything  but 
success. 


SPEECH   AT  MANCHESTER.  171 

We  reached  the  hall.  The  crowd  was  already  begin- 
ning to  be  tumultuous,  and  I  recollect  thinking  to  myself 
as  I  stood  there  looking  at  them,  "  I  will  control  you  ! 
I  came  here  for  victory  and  I  will  have  it,  by  the  help 
of  God  !"  Well,  I  was  introduced,  and  I  must  confess 
that  the  things  that  I  had  done  and  suffered  in  my 
own  country,  according  to  what  the  chairman  who 
introduced  me  said,  amazed  me.  The  speaker  was 
very  English  on  the  subject,  and  I  learned  that  I  be- 
longed to  an  heroic  band,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing, 
with  abolitionism  mixed  in,  and  so  on.  By  the  way,  I 
think  it  was  there  that  I  was  introduced  as  the  Rev. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  Stowe.  But  as  soon  as  I  began 
to  speak  the  great  audience  began  to  show  its  teeth, 
and  I  had  not  gone  on  fifteen  minutes  before  an  un- 
paralleled scene  of  confusion  and  interruption  occurred. 
No  American  that  has  not  seen  an  English  mob  can 
form  any  conception  of  one.  I  have  seen  all  sorts  of 
camp-meetings  and  experienced  all  kinds  of  public 
speaking  on  the  stump  ;  I  have  seen  the  most  disturbed 
meetings  in  New  York  City,  and  they  were  all  of 
them  as  twilight  to  midnight  compared  with  an  Eng- 
lish hostile  audience.  For  in  England  the  meeting 
does  not  belong  to  the  parties  that  call  it,  but  to  who- 
ever chooses  to  go,  and  if  they  can  take  it  out  of  your 
hands  it  is  considered  fair  play.  This  meeting  had  a 
very  large  multitude  of  men  in  it  who  came  there  for 
the  purpose  of  destroying  the  meeting  and  carrying  it 
the  other  way  when  it  came  to  the  vote. 

I  took  the  measure  of  the  audience  and  said  to  my- 
self, "  About  one  fourth  of  this  audience  are  opposed 
to  me,  and  about  one  fourth  will  be  rather  in  sympa- 


173  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

thy,  and  my  business  now  is  not  to  appeal  to  that  por- 
tion that  is  opposed  to  me  nor  to  those  that  are  already 
on  my  side,  but  to  bring  over  the  middle  section." 
How  to  do  this  was  a  problem.  The  question  was,  who 
could  hold  out  longest.  There  were  five  or  six  storm 
centres,  boiling  and  whirling  at  the  same  time  ;  here 
some  one  pounding  on  a  group  with  his  umbrella  and 
shouting,  ' '  Sit  down  there  ;' '  over  yonder  a  row  between 
two  or  three  combatants  ;  somewhere  else  a  group  all 
yelling  together  at  the  top  of  their  voice.  It  was  like 
talking  to  a  storm  at  sea.  But  there  were  the  news- 
paper reporters  just  in  front,  and  I  said  to  them, 
"  Now,  gentlemen,  be  kind  enough  to  take  down  what 
I  say.  It  will  be  in  sections,  but  I  will  have  it  connect- 
ed by-and-by."  I  threw  my  notes  away,  and  entered 
on  a  discussion  of  the  value  of  freedom  as  opposed  to 
slavery  in  the  manufacturing  interest,  arguing  that 
freedom  everywhere  increases  a  man's  necessities,  and 
what  he  needs  he  buys,  and  that  it  was,  therefore,  to 
the  interest  of  the  manufacturing  community  to  stand 
by  the  side  of  labor  through  the  country.  I  never  was 
more  self-possessed  and  never  in  more  perfect  good 
temper,  and  I  never  was  more  determined  that  my 
hearers  should  feel  the  curb  before  I  got  through  with 
them.  The  uproar  would  come  in  on  this  side  and  on 
that,  and  they  would  put  insulting  questions  and  make 
all  sorts  of  calls  to  me,  and  I  would  wait  until  the  noise 
had  subsided,  and  then  get  in  about  five  minutes  of 
talk.  The  reporters  would  get  that  down  and  then  up 
would  come  another  noise.  Occasionally  I  would  see 
things  that  amused  me  and  would  laugh  outright,  and 
the  crowd  would  stop  to  see  what  I  was  laughing  at. 


SPEECH   AT   MANCHESTER.  173 

Then  I  would  sail  in  again  witli  a  sentence  or  two.  A 
good  many  times  the  crowd  threw  up  questions  which 
I  caught  at  and  answered  back.  I  may  as  well  put  in 
here  one  thing  that  amused  me  hugely.  There  were 
baize  doors  that  opened  both  ways  into  side-alleys,  and 
there  was  a  huge,  burly  Englishman  standing  right  in 
front  of  one  of  those  doors  and  roaring  like  a  bull  of 
Bashan  ;  one  of  the  policemen  swung  his  elbow  around 
and  hit  him  in  the  belly  and  knocked  him  through  the 
doorway,  so  that  the  last  i)art  of  the  bawl  was  outside 
in  the  alley- way  ;  it  struck  me  so  ludicrously  to  think 
how  the  fellow  must  have  looked  when  he  found  him- 
self "  hollering"  outside  that  I  could  not  refrain  from 
laughing  outright.  The  audience  immediately  stopped 
its  uproars,  wondering  what  I  was  laughing  at,  and 
that  gave  me  another  chance  and  I  caught  it.  So  we 
kept  on  for  about  an  hour  and  a  half  before  they  got 
so  far  calmed  down  that  I  could  go  on  peaceably  with 
my  sfjeech.  They  liked  the  pluck.  Englishmen  like 
a  man  that  can  stand  on  his  feet  and  give  and  take  ;  and 
so  for  the  last  hour  I  had  pretty  clear  sailing.  The 
next  morning  every  great  paper  in  England  had  the 
whole  speech  down.  I  think  it  was  the  design  of  the 
men  there  to  break  me  down  on  that  first  speech,  by 
fau'  means  or  foul,  feeling  that  if  they  could  do  that 
it  would  be  trumpeted  all  over  the  land.  I  said  to 
them  then  and  there,  "  Gentlemen,  you  may  break 
me  down  now,  but  I  have  registered  a  vow  that  I  will 
never  return  home  until  I  have  been  heard  in  every 
county  and  principal  town  in  the  Kingdom  of  Great 
Britain.  I  am  not  going  to  be  broken  down  nor  put 
down.     I  am  going  to  be  heard,  and  my  country  shall 


174  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

.be  vindicated. "  Nobody  knows  better  than  I  did  what 
it  is  to  feel  that  every  interest  that  touches  the  heart 
of  a  Christian  man  and  a  patriotic  man  and  a  lover  of 
liberty  is  being  assailed  wantonly,  to  stand  between 
one  nation  and  your  own  and  to  feel  that  you  are  in  a 
situation  in  which  your  country  rises  or  falls  with 
you.  And  God  was  behind  it  all ;  I  felt  it  and  I  knew 
it,  and  when  I  got  through  and  the  vote  was  called  off 
you  would  have  thought  it  was  a  tropical  thunder- 
storm that  swept  through  that  hall  as  the  ayes  were 
thundered,  while  the  noes  were  an  insignificant  and 
contemptible  minority.  It  had  all  gone  on  our  side, 
and  such  enthusiasm  I  never  saw.  I  think  it  was 
there  that  when  I  started  to  go  down  into  the  rooms 
below  to  get  an  exit,  that  a  big,  burly  Englishman  in 
the  gallery  wanted  to  shake  hands  with  me,  and  I 
could  not  reach  him,  and  he  called  out,  "  Shake  my 
umbrella  !"  and  he  reached  it  over  ;  I  shook  it,  and  as  I 
did  so  he  shouted,  "  By  Jock  !  Nobody  shall  touch 
that  umbrella  again  !" 

I  went  next  to  Glasgow.  Glasgow  was  the  headquar- 
ters of  a  shipping,  building  interest  that  was  running 
our  blockade.  I  gave  liberty  for  questions  everywhere, 
promising  to  answer  any  question  that  should  be  writ- 
ten and  sent  up,  provided  it  was  a  proper  one.  They 
were  to  go  into  the  hands  of  the  presiding  officer  of  the 
meeting,  who  would  hand  them  to  me  and  I  would 
answer  them.  In  Glasgow  I  discussed  the  question  of 
the  relation  of  slavery  to  workingmen  the  world  over, 
carrying  along  with  it  the  history  of  slavery  in  this 
country.  The  interruption  at  that  meeting  was  very 
bad,  but  not  at  all  equal  to  the  tumult  in  Manchester  ; 


SPEECH   AT   GLASGOW.  175 

but  after  tliey  were  once  stilled  you  would  have 
thought  we  were  in  a  revival.  I  demonstrated  the 
unity  of  labor  the  world  over,  and  discussed  the  rela- 
tions of  the  laboring  man  to  government  and  to  the 
aristocratic  classes,  showing  the  power  of  wealth,  and 
how  slavery  had  made  labor  disreputable,  and  how  it 
was  their  bounden  duty  to  make  labor  honorable  every- 
where, and  how  it  was  a  disgrace  to  them  to  be  build- 
ing ships  to  put  down  the  laborers  of  America,  and  to 
oast  shame  and  contempt  on  themselves  and  on  every 
man  on  earth  that  earned  his  living  by  the  sweat  of  his 
brow.  I  told  them  they  were  driving  nails  into  their 
own  coffins.  My  interruptions  lasted  about  an  hour 
there,  and  the  rest  of  the  time  was  fair  weather  and 
smooth  sailing.  The  questions  that  were  put  to  me  there 
were  the  shrewdest  of  any  I  encountered  in  England. 
They  included  constitutional  questions  as  well  as  others. 
There  was  one  question  that  was  very  significant  and 
revealed  the  difficulties  that  honest  men  felt  there. 

Q.  "  You  say  this  war  is  a  war  in  the  interest  of 
liberty?"  A.  "Yes."  Q.  "How,  then,  is  it  that 
your  President,  in  writing  to  Mr.  Greeley,  says  that  if 
slavery  permitted  will  maintain  the  Union,  slavery  will 
continue,  and  if  the  destruction  of  slavery  is  necessary 
to  the  maintenance  of  the  Union,  then  it  shall  be  de- 
stroyed. The  Union  is  what  we  want."  It  threw  me 
upon  the  necessity  of  proving  the  honor  of  the  North, 
and  showing  its  ethical  difficulty  in  maintaining  its 
obligations  under  the  Constitution  to  all  the  States  of 
the  Union,  not  trespassing  upon  their  guaranteed 
rights  and  prerogatives,  and  our  moral  relation  to  free- 
dom and  to  the  workin":men  of  aU  the  world. 


176  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

From  there  I  went  to  Edinburgh,  where  I  discussed 
the  effect  uj)on  literature  and  learning  and  institutions 
of  learning  and  general  intelligence  of  the  presence  of 
slavery,  on  the  basis  again  of  the  history  of  slavery  in 
America,  and  the  existing  state  of  things.  I  thought 
I  had  seen  a  crowd  before  I  went  there,  but  when  I 
went  through  the  lower  hall  and  tried  to  get  into  the 
assembly-room  the  people  were  wedged  in  there  so  tight 
that  you  might  just  as  well  try  to  find  a  passage 
through  the  wall,  and  I  was  finally  hoisted  over  their 
heads  and  passed  on  by  friendly  hands  and  up  to  the 
gallery,  and  down  over  the  front  of  the  gallery  on  to 
the  x^latform,  in  order  to  get  to  the  position  where  I 
was  to  speak.  There  I  had  less  commotion  than  any- 
where else.  There  was  a  different  audience  there  ; 
there  was  an  educated  and  moral  element  in  it. 

I  went  from  there  to  Liverpool.  If  I  supposed  I  had 
had  a  stormy  time  I  found  out  my  mistake  when  I  got 
there.  Liverpool  was  worse  than  all  the  rest  put  to- 
gether. My  life  was  threatened,  and  I  had  had  com- 
munications to  the  effect  that  I  had  better  not  venture 
there.  The  streets  were  placarded  with  the  most  scur- 
rilous and  abusive  cards,  and  I  brought  home  some  of 
them  and  they  are  in  the  Brooklyn  Historical  Society 
now.*  It  so  haiopened,  I  believe,  that  the  Congrega- 
tional Association  of  England  and  Wales  was  in  session 
there,  and  pretty  much  all  of  the  members  were 
present  on  the  jolatform.  I  suppose  there  were  five 
hundred  people  on  the  platform  behind  me.  There 
were  men  in  the  galleries  and  boxes  who  came  armed, 

*  See  Appendix. 


SPEECH   AT   LIVERPOOL.  177 

and  some  bold  men  on  our  side  went  up  into  those 
boxes  and  drew  their  bowie-knives  and  pistols  and 
said  to  these  young  bloods,  "  The  first  man  that  fires 
here  will  rue  it."  I  heard  a  good  many  narratives  of 
that  kind  afterward,  but  knew  nothing  of  it  at  the 
time.  But  of  all  confusions  and  turmoils  and  whirls  I 
never  saw  the  like.  I  got  control  of  the  meeting  in 
about  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  then  I  had  a  clear  road 
the  rest  of  the  way.  We  carried  the  meeting,  but  it 
required  a  three  hours'  use  of  my  voice  at  its  utmost 
strength.  I  sometimes  felt  like  a  shipmaster  attempt- 
ing to  preach  on  board  of  a  ship  through  a  speaking- 
trumpet  with  a  tornado  on  the  sea  and  a  mutiny 
among  the  men.*  By  this  time  my  voice  was  pretty 
much  all  used  up,  and  I  had  yet  got  to  go  to  Exeter 
Hall  in  London. 

I  went  down  to  London,  and  by  this  time  all  London 
and  all  the  clubs  had  seen  my  speeches,  four  of  which 
had  been  fully  rejDorted.  It  is  said  that  a  man  who 
has  made  the  conversation  of  a  club  over  night  and  had 
a  report  of  one  speech  in  the  London  Times  is  famous. 
I  had  had  four  speeches,  occui^ying  three  or  five  columns 
each,  reported,  and  had  been  incessantly  talked  about 
in  the  clubs.  So  I  was  famous.  When  I  first  went  to 
London  I  stopped  at  the  "  Golden  Cross, "  and  they  put 
me  in  a  little  back  room  right  under  the  rafters. 
When  I  came  back  from  the  Continent  there  had  been 


*  Dr.  Campbell,  who  was  present,  is  reported  to  have  said  that  he  had 
never  heard  anything  like  it  since  the  days  of  Daniel  O'Connell  ;  that  he 
had  heard  some  of  his  best  things,  and  he  thought,  on  the  whole,  that 
not  one  of  them  equalled  Mr.  Beecher's  effort  at  that  time. 


178  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

considerable  said,  and  they  received  me  much  more 
politely  at  the  "  Golden  Cross,"  and  put  me  in  a  thii'd- 
story  front  room.  On  the  third  visit  I  was  received  by 
the  landlord  and  his  servants  in  white  aprons,  and  was 
bowed  in  and  put  in  the  second  story,  and  had  a  front 
parlor  and  bedroom  and  everything  beautiful.  As 
the  cards  came  in  and  gentlemen  of  distinction  called 
I  grew  in  the  eyes  of  the  servants  every  moment. 
"  But  Naman  was  a  leper,  though  he  stood  the  highest 
in  his  master's  favor."  I  had  had  a  successful  career 
under  difficulties,  but  had  talked  and  strained  my  voice 
so  much,  that  when  I  went  to  bed  the  night  before  the 
day  I  was  to  speak,  I  could  not  be  heard  aloud,  and 
here  I  had  come  to  London  to  close  my  course  by 
speaking  on  the  moral  aspect  of  the  question,  and  ap- 
pealing to  the  religious  feeling  of  the  English  people. 
It  was  the  climax — and  my  voice  was  gone  !  I  said, 
•*'  Lord,  Thou  know^estthis.  Let  it  be  as  Thou  wilt." 
The  next  morning  I  woke  up  in  bed,  and  as  soon  as  I 
came  to  myself  fairly,  and  thought  about  my  voice,  I 
didn't  dare  to  speak  for  fear  I  should  find  I  could 
not ;  but  by-and-by  I  sort  of  spoke,  and  then  I  would 
not  say  another  word  for  fear  I  should  lose  it.  Other- 
wise I  was  well  and  strong  ;  but  the  huskiness  of  my 
voice  was  such  that  when  I  did  speak  there  was  no 
elasticity.  There  seemed  to  be  one  little  rift  that  I 
spoke  through,  and  if  I  went  above  or  below  it  I 
broke.  Then  came  to  me  Dr.  Waddington  and  Brother 
Tompkins,  most  excellent  and  devout  men  they  were, 
and  very  faithful  to  our  cause.  They  called  on  me, 
and  seeing  that  I  was  in  bonds  they  cheered  me  and 
said,  "  No  matter,  you  have  done  your  work.     What 


SPEECH   IN   LONDON.  )  179 

you  have  already  done  is  sufficient,  so  it  is  no  matter, 
if  you  only  make  your  appearance  and  bow."  They 
prayed  with  me  and  it  lifted  me  right  out  of  my  de- 
spondency. 

So  I  plucked  up  courage  and  went  to  the  hall  that 
evening,  and  the  streets  of  London  were  crowded.  I 
could  not  get  near  the  hall  except  by  the  aid  of  a 
policeman.  And  when  I  got  around  to  the  back  door, 
I  felt  a  woman  throw  her  arms  around  me — I  saw  they 
were  the  arms  of  a  woman,  and  that  she  had  me  in  her 
arms — and  when  I  went  through  the  door  she  got 
through,  too,  and  on  turning  around  I  found  it  was 
one  of  the  members  of  my  church.  She  had  married 
and  gone  to  London,  and  she  was  determined  to  hear 
that  speech,  and  so  took  this  way  to  accomplish  an  ap- 
parently impossible  task.  She  grasped  and  held  me 
until  I  had  got  her  in.  I  suppose  that  is  the  way  a 
great  many  sinners  get  into  heaven  finally.  Well,  I 
had  less  trouble  and  less  tumult  in  London  than  any- 
where else."^    The  battle  had  been  fought,  and  my 

*  A  correspondent  who  was  present  gave  an  account  of  this  Exeter 
Hall  meeting,  from  which  I  condense  some  extracts,  as  pres^iting  a 
picture  of  one  of  these  famous  meetings  from  a  spectator's  point  of 
view. 

"  When  Mr.  Beecher  arose,  there  were  five  minutes  of  the  most  tre- 
mendous cheering  I  have  ever  witnessed,  in  the  midst  of  which  stood 
Mr.  Beecher,  calm  as  a  rock  in  the  midst  of  the  surges.  His  voice  was 
scarcely  as  sonorous  and  clear  as  it  usually  is.  '  I  expect  to  be  hoarse,' 
he  said  ;  '  and  I  am  willing  to  be  hoarse,  if  I  can  in  any  way  assist  to  bring 
the  mother  and  daughter  heart  to  heart  and  hand  together.'  This  senti- 
ment was  received  with  great  applause  ;  and  Mr.  Beecher's  hoarseness 
was  thus  impressed  to  the  service  of  his  cause.  But  he  so  economized 
his  voice,   that  every  word  was  distinctly  heard  by  the  vast  assembly. 


'180  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

address  there  was  a  good  deal  more  of  a  religious  ad- 
dress tlian  anywhere  else,  though  I  discussed  in  all 
these  places  very  thoroughly  the  whole  subject  of 
slavery.  But  the  way  was  broken  and  the  storm  had 
passed  away,  and  the  cause  was  triumphant.  That 
which  I  had  had  in  mind  was  effected.  The  idea  of 
now  raising  lecturers,  under  Spence  «fe  Co.,  to  go 
through  England  and  turn  the  common  people  away 
from  the  North  and  toward  the  South  was  now  aban- 
doned. The  enthusiasm  of  the  whole  country  ran 
strongly  in  the  other  dkection.  And  here,  let  me  say 
that  everywhere  the  weavers,  the  laborers,  that  were 
by  the  famine  of  cotton  thrown  out  of  employment 
and  into  the  greatest  distress,  were  stanch  and  true  to 

.  .  .  At  one  time  when  there  was  an  interval  of  a  few  moments, 
arising  from  the  effort  of  the  hisses  to  triiimph  over  the  cheers,  Mr. 
Beecher,  with  a  quiet  smile,  said,  '  Friends,  I  thank  you  for  this  inter- 
ruption. It  gives  me  a  chance  to  rest.  The  hisses  thereupon  died 
away,  and  had  no  resurrection  during  the  evening.  .  .  .  Again 
did  Mr.  Beecher  level  his  lance  ;  it  was  at  those  who  were  making 
capital  out  of  what  they  call  '  American  sympathy  with  the  opjaressor  of 
Poland.'  Nothing  could  exceed  the  drollery  with  which,  almost  blush- 
ing, he  presented  the  loving  and  jealous  maiden  who,  when  her  suitor 
is  not  attentive,  gets  up  a  flirtation  with  some  other  man.  '  America 
flirts  with  Russia,  but  has  her  eye  on  England.'  The  presence  of  war 
ships  from  Russia  at  New  York  has  been  the  leading  card  of  the  Con- 
federates here  in  their  game  to  win  popular  sympathy  for  the  South. 
Consequently,  when  Mr.  Beecher  said,  '  But  it  is  said  it  is  very  un- 
worthy that  America  should  be  flirting  with  the  oppressor  of  Poland,' 
there  were  violent  shouts,  'Yes,  yes.'  Mr.  Beecher  waited  until  the 
cries  had  entirely  subsided  ;  then  leaning  a  little  forward,  he  put  on  an 
indescribably  simjile  expression,  and  said  mildly,  'I  think  so  too.  And 
now  you  know  exactly  how  we  felt  when  you  flirted  with  Mason  at  the 
Lord  Mayor's  banquet.'    I  cannot  attempt  to  describe  the  efifect  of  these 


TESTIMONIAL   MEETINGS.  181 

the  right  instincts  of  tlie  laboring  man.  They  never 
flinched,  and  our  cause  was  successful  in  England  by 
reason  of  the  fidelity  of  the  great,  working,  common 
people  of  England. 

Then  came  a  series  of  breakfasts.  They  were  all 
given  by  friendly  men,  and  by  men  who  were  really  in 
earnest  to  know  all  about  the  facts  of  the  case.  I  had  to 
discuss  the  questions  of  taxation,  the  issue  of  such  an 
enormous  quantity  of  greenbacks,  and  the  ability  and 
the  willingness  of  our  j^eople  to  pay  ;  and  I  had  to  go 
into  finance  a  good  deal,  and  what  little  knowledge  I 
had  came  wonderfully  handy.  When  you  stand  up  at 
a  breakfast -table  and  are  questioned  by  shrewd  men 
who    do    understand    these    things,    the    intellectual 

words  on  the  throng.  The  people  arose  with  a  shout  that  began  to  be 
applause,  but  became  a  shout  of  laughter.  ...  In  the  heart  of 
Mr.  Beecher's  oration  was  given  a  denunciation  of  slavery  more  power- 
ful than  I  have  ever  heard  from  his  lips.  He  scourged  and  scourged  it 
until  it  seemed  to  stand  before  us  a  hideous  monster,  bloated  with 
human  blood  and  writhing  under  his  goads.  He  told,  apropos  of  those 
who  said,  '  Why  not  let  the  South  go?'  the  story  of  Fowell  Buxton's 
seizing  the  mad  dog  by  the  neck  and  holding  him  at  the  risk  of  his  life 
until  help  could  come  ;  then  asked  what  they  would  say  if  the  man  who, 
witnessing  this,  should  have  cried,  'Let  him  go.  Let  him  go.'  'Shall 
we  let  this  monster  go  ?  '  he  cried.  '  No  !  No  !  No  ! '  surged  up  from  the 
crowd.  At  this  moment  a  colored  man,  lately  come  here  from  the  South, 
stood  up  in  his  seat,  which  was  exactly  in  the  centre  of  the  building, 
and  waved  his  hat.  Other  colored  persons  rose  and  waved  hats  and 
handkerchiefs,  the  audience  cheering  until  the  city  outside  seemed  to 
be  waked  up,  for  we  heard  a  storm  of  shouting  voices  outside.  The 
crowd  also  caught  sight  of  an  old  lady  (white)  in  the  gallery,  who  had  a 
huge  umbrella,  which,  having  expanded  to  its  utmost  dimensions,  she 
waved  to  and  fro  like  a  mighty  balloon,  which  had  a  very  comical  effect 
indeed." 


182  HENRF   WARD   BEECHER. 

ordeal  is  much  severer  than  the  physical  exhaustion  in 
the  night  speeches.  There  were  five  of  these  break- 
fasts in  all ;  by  the  time  I  was  through  I  was  very  glad 
of  it.  It  was  now  coming  on  toward  November. 
They  wanted  to  publish  the  speeches  I  had  made,  and 
I  went  down  to  Liverpool  to  Charlie  Duncan's  house, 
and  the  proof-sheets  were  sent  to  me  there,  and  I 
worked  on  them  to  get  them  ready  until  about  the 
middle  of  iN'ovember,  I  think,  and  then  I  took  ship  for 
home. 

Now,  as  there  was  no  telegraph  under  the  sea,  and 
there  had  been  no  time  for  me  to  hear  anything  about 
my  speeches,  and  as  I  never  had  been  treated  with 
very  great  luxury  in  the  debates  of  the  slavery  ques- 
tion and  the  war,  but  had  been  set  upon  in  the  public 
press,  I  hadn't  the  slightest  idea  what  the  result  of  my 
labors  in  England  would  be.  I  had  the  consciousness 
that  I  had  not  reserved  one  single  faculty  nor  one 
single  particle  of  strength  there.  I  had  worked  for 
my  country,  God  himself  being  witness,  with  the  con- 
centrated essence  of  my  very  being.  I  expected  to 
die.  I  did  not  believe  I  should  get  through  it.  I 
thought  at  times  I  should,  certainly  break  a  blood-ves- 
sel or  have  apoplexy.  I  did  not  care.  I  was  as  willing 
to  die  as  ever  I  was,  when  hungry  or  thirsty,  to  take 
refreshment,  if  I  might  die  for  my  country.  Nobody 
knows  what  his  country  is  until  he  is  an  exile  from  it 
and  sees  it  in  peril  and  obloquy.  I  was  sick  all  the  way 
home.  My  passage  was  seventeen  days  from  Liverpool 
to  New  York.  It  was  fifteen  days  to  Halifax,  and 
during  that  time  I  was  never  off  my  back  after  leaving 
Queenstown  until  we  entered  the  Halifax  Bay.     It 


RETURN   TO   AMERICA.  185 

was  then  nine  or  ten  o'  clock  at  night,  and  I  was  np  on 
deck  as  soon  as  we  got  into  smooth  water,  and  was 
walking  the  deck  when  a  man  met  me  and  said,  "  Is 
this  Mr.  Beecher  ?"  I  started  and  said,  "  Yes."  Said 
he,  "  I  have  a  telegram  from  your  wife."  It  seemed 
like  a  vision — that  I  had  got  where  a  telegram  would 
reach  me.  I  had  touched  American  shores.  You  can- 
not imagine  the  ecstasy  of  the  feeling.  The  telegram 
of  my  wife  simply  announced  that  she  would  come  to 
meet  me  at  New  York.  The  ship  in  which  I  came 
over  was  the  Asia.  She  was  loaded  down  to  her  gun- 
wales with  warlike  stores  and  contraband  goods  that 
were  to  go  to  Bermuda,  and  was  full  of  the  bitterest  of 
Southern  men  and  partisans.  It  made  no  difference  to 
me,  because  I  was  on  my  back  in  the  cabin  and  cared 
nothing  about  it. 

From  there  to  Boston  was  a  pleasant  trip — the  only 
two  days  I  was  ever  on  the  sea  when  I  was  not  sea- 
sick. We  were  off  Boston  Harbor  about  seven  in  the 
evening,  but  the  tide  was  not  right,  and  we  did  not  get 
in  till  about  twelve  o'  clock.  We  reached  our  landing, 
but  could  not  get  into  our  slip  until  the  next  morning. 
I  was  on  deck.  I  could  not  sleep.  I  saw  the  lights  all 
over  Boston,  and  there  came  again  at  midnight  a  man 
who  turned  out  to  be  a  Custom  House  officer.  After 
watching  me  he  said,  "  Is  this  Mr.  Beecher  ?"  "  Yes." 
'*  Well,  we  are  very  glad  to  see  you  home  safely. 
Some  of  your  friends  in  Boston  wrote  down  to  us  tell- 
ing us  what  we  were  to  do,  as  if  we  didn't  know  how 
to  treat  a  gentleman  decently.  It  is  a  pity  she  has 
come  in  Saturday  night.  To-morrow  is  Sunday." 
*'  Why  ?"  said  I,     "  Because,  if  you  had  come  in  on  a 


184  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

week  day  we  were  ready  to  give  you  a  reception  tliat 
would  make  things  hum/'  That  was  the  first  I  had 
heard — I  did  not  know  whether  the  papers  were  down 
on  me  or  not.  I  felt  ashamed  to  ask  him  further  ;  but 
I  said  I  had  not  heard  anything  from  home,  and  was 
not  aware  how  the  news  of  my  labors  abroad  had 
been  received  by  my  countrymen.  "  Well,"  said 
he,  "you'll  find  out."  So,  with  that  assurance  he 
chalked  my  baggage  and  got  me  on  shore.  I  got  into 
a  hack  and  drove  to  the  Parker  House  about  four 
o'  clock  Sunday  morning.  I  asked  the  clerk  if  I  could 
have  a  room.  "No,"  said  he,  "we  are  full."  "I 
suppose  I  can  have  a  bed  in  one  of  the  parlors,  can't 
I  ?"  said  I.  "No,"  said  he,  "  all  the  parlors  are  fuU." 
*' Can't  I  bunk  on  the  floor  anywhere?"  "No," 
again,  "all  full."  He  asked  my  name,  and  when  I 
told  him  he  said,  "  Why,  there's  a  room  here  for 
youy  Said  I,  "  I  think  not,  I  just  came  from  Eng- 
land." "There  is,"  said  he.  "All  right,"  said  I, 
"  let  me  have  a  lamp.  I  won't  dispute  you.  H  any 
one  gets  in  after  I  once  get  in  I  shall  think  he  is  a 
smart  fellow."  I  found  out  that  the  passengers'  names 
were  telegraphed  from  Halifax  to  Boston  to  Mr. 
Parker,  who  is  a  friend  of  mine,  and  he  had  said,  "  Mr. 
Beecher  will  be  around  in  about  so  many  days  and 
will  want  a  room,"  and  he  had  set  it  apart  for  me. 
About  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  bang  !  came  on 
my  door.  I  said,  "What  do  you  want?"  It  was  a 
committee  who  had  come  to  see  if  I  would  lecture  be- 
fore a  social  club.  I  got  rid  of  them,  and  arrived  home 
at  last  safe  and  sound. 
The  speeches  in  England  which  Mr.  Beecher  has  thus 


HIS  WORK   IN   ENGLAND.  185 

simply  but  graphically  described  may  fairly  be  char- 
acterized as  the  greatest  oratorical  work  of  his  life. 
It  may  well  be  doubted  whether,  if  oratory  is  to  be 
measured  by  Its  actual  results,  there  is  in  the  history 
of  eloquence  recorded  any  greater  oratorical  triumph 
than  that  achieved  in  this  brief  campaign.  The  only 
parallel  in  public  effect  is  that  produced  by  Demos- 
thenes' orations  against  Philip.  The  orators  of  the 
American  Revolution  spoke  to  sympathizing  audi- 
ences ;  those  of  the  anti-slavery  campaign  in  this 
country  produced  far  less  immediate  effect ;  the  ora- 
tions of  the  great  orators  in  the  British  House  of 
Commons — Chatham  and  Burke — rarely  changed  the 
vote  of  the  House  ;  and  though  Lord  Erskine  won  his 
victories  over  his  Juries  in  spite  of  the  threats  of  the 
judges  and  the  influence  of  the  Government,  the  issues 
which  engaged  his  attention  were  not  so  grand,  nor 
the  circumstances  so  trying,  nor  the  immediate  results 
so  far-reaching.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Mr. 
Beecher,  by  giving  a  voice  to  the  before  silenced  moral 
sentiment  of  the  democracy  of  Great  Britain,  and  by 
clarifying  the  question  at  issue  from  misunderstand- 
ings which  were  well-nigh  universal  and  misrepresen- 
tations which  were  common,  changed  the  public  senti- 
ment, and  so  the  political  course  of  the  nation,  and 
secured  and  cemented  an  alliance  between  the  mother 
country  and  our  own  land,  which  needs  no  treaties  to 
give  it  expression,  which  has  been  gaining  strength 
ever  since,  and  which  no  demagogism  on  this  side  of 
the  water  and  no  ignorance  and  prejudice  on  that  have 
been  able  to  impair. 


12 


CHAPTER  IX. 

PEESONAL   TRAITS   AND   INCIDENTS. 

In  person — but  Mr.  Beeclier's  appearance  is  so  well 
known  to  most  American  readers  that  a  new  full-length 
portrait  would  be  superfluous  here.  Instead,  I  ^vill 
borrow  one  from  the  Rev.  William  M.  Taylor,  D.D., 
now  pastor  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle.  * 

"  The  forehead  is  high  rather  than  broad ;  his 
cheeks  bare  ;  his  mouth  compressed  and  firm,  with 
humor  lurking  and  almost  laughing  in  the  corners  ; 
his  collar  turned  over  a  la  Byron,  more  perhaps  for  the 
comfort  of  his  ears  (as  he  is  exceedingly  short-necked) 
than  for  any  love  for  that  peculiar  fashion.  His  voice 
is  full  of  music,  in  which,  by  the  way,  he  is  a  great 
proficient.  His  body  is  well  developed,  and  his  great 
maxim  is  to  keep  it  in  first-rate  working  order,  for  he 
considers  health  to  be  a  Christian  duty,  and  rightly 
deems  it  impossible  for  any  man  to  do  justice  to  his 
mental  faculties  without  at  the  same  time  attending  to 
his  physical.  His  motions  are  quick  and  elastic,  and 
Ms  manners  frank,  cordial,  and  kind,  such  as  to  attract 
rather  than  repel  the  advances  of  others.  With  chil- 
dren he  is  an  especial  favorite  ;  they  love  to  run  up  to 
him  and  offer  him  little  bundles  of  flowers,  of  which 


*  Scottish  Eeview,  October,  1859. 


His    Four-Room    House 


The   Residence   he   built,    painting    it  with    his  own    hands. 

Mr.   Beechers   Residences  in   Indianapolis. 


PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.  18.9 

they  know  him  to  be  passionately  fond,  and  they  deem 
themselves  more  than  rewarded  by  the  hearty  '  Thank 
you,'  and  the  tender  look  of  loving  interest  that 
accompanies  his  acceptance  of  their  gift.  Add  to  this 
that  his  benevolence  is  limited  only  by  his  means,  and 
our  readers  will  have  a  pretty  good  idea  of  his  general 
character  and  personal  appearance." 

Though  twenty-two  years  have  passed  since  this 
portrait  was  painted,  there  is  little  cause  to  change  it ; 
the  voice  is  as  musical,  and  the  body  as  well  developed, 
and  the  presence  as  forceful,  and  the  whole  person  at 
times  as  full  of  fire  at  sixty -nine  as  at  forty-six.  The 
only  signs  of  age  are  the  thin  gray  hair  and  the  less 
quick  and  elastic  motions,  and  even  these,  in  the  full 
current  of  impassioned  oratory,  are  scarcely  less  quick 
and  elastic.  The  mental  alertness  is  no  less.  The 
humor  still  lurks  and  laughs  in  the  corners  of  the 
mouth  as  of  yore  ;  the  eyes  beam  in  kindliness  or  flash 
with  fire  ;  the  children  find  him  as  ready  for  a  romp  ; 
and  though  experience  of  half  a  century  has  taught 
him  to  be  wary  of  the  beggars  that  constantly  beset  his 
path,  and  that  fill  his  mail  with  applications  for  aid 
which  would  exhaust  the  resources  of  a  Vanderbilt, 
his  sympathy  for  real  distress  is  as  deep  as  ever. 

Perhaps  the  most  distinguishing  characteristic  of 
Mr.  Beecher  is  his  many-sidedness.  There  is  no  branch 
of  knowledge  which  interests  humanity  which  does  not 
interest  him.  He  is  good  authority  on  roses,  trees — 
both  for  shade  and  fruit — precious  stones,  soaps,  coffee, 
wall-papers,  engravings,  various  schools  of  music,  of 
which  he  is  passionately  fond,  the  best  classic  English 
authors,  the  applications  of  constitutional  law  to  moral 


^l&O  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

reform  questions,  physiology  and  hygiene,  and  I  know- 
not  what  else.  In  all  my  communications  with  him, 
in  five  years  of  the  eucyclopsedic  work  of  an  editor,  I 
have  never  touched  a  subject  of  current  interest  of 
which  he  appeared  to  be  ignorant.  When  he  was  un- 
.acquainted  vdth  the  subject,  he  could  suggest  a  direc- 
tion— a  book  or  a  living  authority — to  go  to  for  infor- 
mation. This  largeness  of  his  nature,  coupled  with  its 
quickness,  its  mobility,  makes  his  serious  moods  seem 
an  affectation  or  assumption  to  narrow  or  sluggish 
natures.  He  will  pass  instantly,  by  a  transition  inex- 
plicable to  men  of  slow  mental  movement,  from  hilar- 
ity to  reverence  and  from  reverence  back  to  hilarity 
again  ;  in  a  conversation  about  diamonds,  he  will  flash 
on  you  a  magnificent  picture  of  the  apocalyptic  reve- 
lation of  the  jewelled  walls  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  and 
before  his  auditor  has  fully  recovered  his  breath  from 
the  sudden  flight,  he  is  back  upon  the  earth  again,  tell- 
ing some  experience  with  a  salesman  at  Tiffany's  or 
Howard's.  He  is  catholic,  broad,  of  universal  sympa- 
thies, of  mercurial  temperament,  of  instantaneous  and 
lightning-like  rapidity  of  mental  action. 

Some  of  these  traits  af  his  personal  character  are 
illustrated  in  the  incidents  furnished  by  a  number  of 
personal  friends,  some  hitherto  untold,  which  will  be 
found  in  the  following  chapters.  ♦ 


One  Sunday  not  long  ago,  when  Mr.  Beecher  rose  to 
give  the  notices,  before  the  sermon,  he  turned  over  the 
papers  in  his  hand,  saying,  "  I  was  to  have  had  a 
notice  of  a  temperance  meeting,  but  I  can't  find  it 
here,"  turning  inquiringly  toward  Mr.  Halliday,  his 


MISS  FRANCES   WILLARD'S  LECTURE.  191 

pastoral  helper,  who  said  he  thought  it  was  there 
somewhere.  "  Well,  it  does  not  seem  to  be  anywhere 
that  I  have  looked,"  replied  Mr.  Beecher,  turning  over 
the  papers  again,  "  but  I  can  give  the  notice  all  the 
same."  And  he  proceeded  to  give  a  somewhat  lengthy 
and  entertaining  announcement  of  a  lecture  by  Miss 
Frances  E.  Willard  to  be  given  on  Monday  evening  in 
Plymouth  Church,  and  commending  her  highly  as  a 
speaker.  Once,  by  mistake,  he  spoke  of  the  lecture 
as  "  to-night,"  when  Mr.  Halliday  reminded  him  that 
it  was  Monday  night.  "  To-night,  did  I  say  ?"  Mr. 
Beecher  said  in  a  surprised  tone.  "  No,  you  won't  hear 
a  woman  speak  to-night,  you'll  hear  me."  Having 
finished  this  notice,  he  began  to  give  the  others,  when 
suddenly  turning  toward  Mr.  Halliday,  and  holding 
out  a  sheet  of  paper  in  his  hand,  he  said,  in  a  tone 
half  deprecatory,  half  apologetic,  *•'  There  !  I  have  had 
that  notice  in  my  hand  all  this  time  !" 

Miss  Willard' s  lecture  was  given  as  announced,  and 
after  she  had  finished,  having  been  interrupted  by  fre- 
quent applause,  he  slowly  ascended  the  platform, 
looking  at  her  with  evident  approval,  and  moving  his 
head  with  significant  emphasis,  he  said,  "  And  yet  she 
can't  vote  P''  When  the  burst  of  applause  which  fol- 
lowed had  subsided,  he  added,  turning  toward  the 
audience,  "  And  are  you  not  ashamed  of  it  ?" 


The  following  incident  is  considered  very  character- 
istic by  the  Brooklyn  Clerical  Union,  who  know  him 
well.  One  Saturday  evening  in  the  Union  they  were 
discussing  the  future  condition  of  the  wicked,  on  which 
Mr.   Beecher  expressed  his  latest  opinion.      "  But," 


192  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

said  Dr.  Edward  Beecher,  "  you  took  an  almost  oppo- 
site view  in  a  sermon  six  weeks  ago."  "Well,"  said 
Mr.  Beecher,  "  if  I  said  it  I  believed  it  then.  I  never 
say  anything  that  I  don't  believe  at  the  time." 


A.  gentleman  relates  one  or  two  characteristic  re- 
marks of  Mr.  Beecher' s.  "  On  one  occasion,"  says  he, 
"  I  tried  to  excuse  myself  to  Mr.  Beecher  from  some 
work  in  the  Bethel,  on  the  ground  that  I  had  all  I 
could  do.  He  replied,  '  That  is  just  the  kind  of  men 
he  wanted,  as  such  men  could  and  always  would  do  a 
little  more.'  "  The  same  gentleman,  who  is  a  lawyer, 
continues  :  "At  another  time  I  went  to  take  Mr. 
Beecher' s  affidavit  on  some  matter  I  do  not  now  recall. 
It  was  an  oppressive  day  in  summer,  and  it  had  been 
intensely  hot  through  the  week,  and  I  therefore  under- 
stood Mr.  Beecher  when,  after  he  had  sworn  to  the 
affidavit,  he  remarked,  '  I've  felt  up  at  Peekskill 
frequently  this  week  that  it  would  be  a  relief  to 
have  a  notary  present.'  I  recall  another  incident  con- 
nected with  his  speaking  at  Albion  in  1856,  in  the 
Fremont  campaign.  He  pictured  an  arena  with  Bu- 
chanan on  his  charger,  the  black  knight  of  slavery, 
and  Fremont,  the  white  knight  of  freedom,  all  ready 
for  the  battle ;  then  suddenly  stopping,  said,  '  But 
look,  who  is  this  little  insignificant  person  creeping 
Tinder  the  fence.  It's  Millard  Filmore.'  An  Epis- 
copal clergyman  on  the  platform  was  so  excited  and 
the  picture  was  so  real  that  he  jumped  up,  and  looking 
over  where  Mr.  Beecher  pointed  to  the  supposed  man 
creeping  under  the  fence,  cried  out,  '  Where  is  he  % 
where  is  he  ?'  " 


INCIDENTS.  193 

A  parishioner  of  Mr.  Beecher^'s,  a  lady,  relates  the 
following  incidents  : 

I  once  said  to  Mr.  Beecher,  "  Do  try  to  carry  some 

comfort  to  Mrs. ,  she  is  unhappy,  and  says  she  is 

in  a  dreadful  twilight."  He  replied,  "  I  will  soon, 
but  give  her  my  love,  and  tell  her  not  to  mind  about 
the  twilight,  if  'tis  only  Tnorning  twilight." 


He  came  in  one  day,  and  caught  up  my  baby,  re- 
marking, ' '  The  Bible  does  not  say,  '  A  man  shall  not 
covet  his  neighbor's  children.'  " 


We  were  visiting  among  the  sick  poor,  and  upon, 
entering  a  low  basement  he  stepped  back,  saying  to 
me,  "  You  pass  on  ;  let  the  poor  sufferer  see  a  womarC s 
face  first."  

At  the  close  of  the  pew-renting  in  Plymouth  Church, 
a  friend  said  to  him,  "  Mr.  Beecher,  I've  been  trying 
all  the  evening  to  get  a  seat,  and  haven't  succeeded." 
To  which  Mr.  Beecher  replied,  "  Well,  then,  you  must 
fulfil  the  apostolic  injunction,  having  done  all  to 
stand.''''  

My  husband  one  evening  in  the  prayer-meeting 
spoke  upon  the  benefit  he  had  derived  from  early  in- 
struction in  the  Assembly's  Catechism,  and  repeated 
several  portions  of  it.  As  he  closed,  Mr.  Beecher  said, 
*'  That's  very  well ;  you  may  go  up  head." 


Mr.  Beecher  once  described  an  old-fashioned  sewing 
society.  "  You  know,"  said  he,  "  that  a  company  of 
ladies  get  together,  and  they  sew  up  their  collars  and 


194  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

they  sew  np  their  neighbors  [accompanying  the  words 
by  an  illustration  with  his  hand,  as  if  sewing] — in  fact 
it  is  a  sort  of  a  sew-ci2i\  cannibalism," 


There  is  one  scene  which  occurred  in  his  pulpit  dur- 
ing the  war  that  will  never  be  forgotten  by  me,  as  it 
was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  heard  Mr.  Beecher  preach, 
and  my  young  heart  was  filled  as  I  listened  to  him. 
He  had  given  out  the  closing  hymn,  when  the  little 
sliding  door  behind  him  was  pushed  aside  and  a  paper 
handed  to  him.  He  read  it,  turned  to  the  choir — the 
organ  had  already  commenced  the  hymn — and  said, 
"  Stop  !  turn  to  'America'  while  I  read  this  despatch." 
He  then  read  with  a  voice  full  of  emotion  the  despatch, 
which  was  from  Secretary  Stanton,  proclaiming  a  great 
victory  for  the  Union  army  under  Sheridan.  A  thrill 
went  through  the  audience,  and  'America'  was  sung 
that  day  with  the  spirit  and  the  understanding  also. 


In  1864  the  "  Central  Union  Club  of  Brooklyn"  en- 
gaged Miss  Anna  Dickinson  to  speak  upon  national 
affairs  in  the  Brooklyn  Academy  of  Music.  After  the 
Academy  had  been  engaged,  the  directors  sent  word 
that  they  could  not  consent  to  have  the  building 
ojjened  for  Miss  Dickinson  to  speak  in.  The  facts 
were  brought  to  the  notice  of  Mr.  Beecher,  which  so 
aroused  his  indignation  that  the  following  Sunday 
morning  he  called  the  attention  of  the  people  to  the 
action  of  the  managers  of  the  Academy  of  Music  in 
such  language  that  it  was  but  a  short  time  before  the 
Academy  was  opened  to  Miss  Dickinson,  and  many 
other  buildings  throughout  the   country   which  pre- 


MR.  BEECHER  AND  DR.  LEONARD  BACON.     195 

viously  had  been  considered  too  sacred  for  a  woman  to 
speak  in, 

A  gentleman  once  called  at  Mr.  Beecher's  house, 
very  early  in  the  morning,  before  the  servant  had  swept 
the  parlors.  Mrs.  Beecher  came  in  first,  and  casually 
stopped  to  pick  up  a  bit  of  thread  from  the  carpet. 
Instantly,  Mr.  Beecher,  who  was  following  her,  went 
all  around  the  room,  stooping  here  and  there  to  pick 
up  imaginary  bits,  and  laughingly  exclaimed,  "  Why 
don't  we  always  pick  up  things  lying  around  loose? 
No  telling  how  much  we  might  accumulate." 


A  friend  sends  the  following  incidents.  The  first  re- 
lates to  an  effort  of  one  of  his  early  teachers  to  impress 
upon  his  mind  the  distinction  in  the  use  of  the  definite 
and  indefinite  article.  Said  the  teacher,  "  You  can  say 
a  man,  but  you  cannot  say  a  men."  "  Oh,  yes,  I  can," 
was  Henry's  quick  response,  "  I  say  it  very  often,  and 
my  father  says  it  at  the  end  of  all  his  prayers." 


The  second  occurred  at  the  close  of  one  of  his  famous 
lectures,  delivered  in  the  Lyman  Beecher  course,  before 
the  students  of  the  Theological  Class  of  Yale  College 
in  the  winter  of  1874.  These  lectures  were  greatly  ad- 
mired by  professors,  clergymen,  and  students.  At  the 
close  of  one  of  these  which  was  of  marked  interest  to 
all  present.  Rev.  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  came  up  to  him, 
and  laying  his  hand  upon  his  shoulder,  said,  "  Brother 
Beecher,  I  fear  the  devU  whispered  in  your  ear  just 
now  that  this  was  a  fine  lecture."  "  Oh,  no,"  quickly 
replied  Mr.  Beecher,  ''  he  left  that  for  you  to  do." 


196  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

A  fellow-traveller  with  Mr.  Beecher  on  the  Hudson 
River  Railroad  between  New  York  and  Peekskill, 
remarks  always  how  he  goes  through  a  crowd  :  He  is 
the  first  off  the  train,  first  at  the  top  of  the  Elevated 
Railroad  stairs,  first  on  thronged  platform,  ferry,  etc. 
At  his  age,  in  the  heat  of  midsummer,  with  his  basket 
of  green  stuff  on  his  arm  (from  ''  the  farm"),  he  is  al- 
ways for  the  first  place.  A  young  man  must  hurry  to 
keep  up  with  his  bulky,  red-faced  companion.  It  is 
not  once,  it  is  always,  and  hence  characteristic.  It 
shows  the  man.  He  complains  of  the  heat,  but  de- 
spises it.  He  "  wishes  there  was  a  thermometer 
about."  "But  it  makes  you  hotter  to  consult  it." 
''  No.  I  want  a  rational  excuse  for  being  so  uncom- 
fortable." His  travelling  dress  you  know:  the  old 
duster  blowing  in  the  wind,  carelessness  as  to  his  soil 
of  travel,  etc. 

In  a  trying  day  for  a  younger  preacher,  set  upon  by 
an  unreasonable  faction  in  his  church,  he  said,  "  My 
boy,  I  am  watching  you.  If  you  are  of  the  true  met- 
tle, a  real  man,  this  will  only  prove  you."  Grasping 
the  young  man's  hand  with  a  never-to-be-forgotten 
warmth,  he  continued,  "  Yes,  this  will  be  the  making 
of  you."  He  came  through  crowded  rooms  of  a  dis- 
tinguished assembly  to  say  this,  voluntarily. 

Once,  meeting  the  same  younger  preacher,  he 
asked,  "  How  long  have  you  been  at  it  V  (preaching). 
*'  About  ten  years,"  was  the  reply.  "  A  fair  start ; 
Just  a  fair  start,  ten  years."  And  he  straightened  him- 
self up,  half  wearily,  half  exultingly,  as  if  the  thoughts 
of  his  thrice  ten  years  and  their  battles  came  over  him 
like  a  flood. 


INCIDENTS   IN   THE   PULPIT.  197 

A  member  of  Plymouth  Church  thus  relates  in- 
stances showing  Mr.  Beecher'  s  rhetorical  i^ower  : 

I  remember  one  Sunday  morning,  during  those 
troublous  times  when  a  certain  enemy  was  threatening 
severest  injury,  Mr.  Beecher  read  the  account  of  Paul's 
shipwreck,  and  his  being  cast  upon  the  island  of 
Melita. 

He  read  the  whole  account  in  a  thrilling  manner, 
until  he  came  to  the  story  of  the  viper  which  fastened 
itself  upon  the  hand  of  Paul,  then,  in  reading  the 
words,  "  He  shook  off  the  beast  into  the  fire,  and  felt 
no  harm,^''  he  made  one  single  gesture  with  his  hand, 
as  if  he  too  would  thus  shake  off  the  viper  that  was 
ready  to  sting  him. 

Word  or  comment  was  not  necessary.  It  was  as  if 
an  electric  thrill  passed  through  the  great  congregation, 
and  every  one  understood  the  unspoken  comment. 
A  well-known  elocutionist  was  heard  to  say  at  the  close 
of  the  service,  that  it  was  one  of  the  finest  things  he 
ever  listened  to.    "  It  was  absolutely  perfect,"  he  said. 


I  recall  another  occasion,  when  Mr.  Beecher  read  at 
opening  service  the  23d  chapter  of  Matthew.  I  never 
shall  forget,  though  it  is  impossible  to  describe  the 
effect  he  produced  as  he  read  that  long  list  of  woes 
Christ  pronounced  against  the  Pharisees. 

I  seem  now  to  hear  his  tone  and  emphasis  of  intense 
scorn  as  he  read  again  and  again  the  words,  "  Woe 
unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  liyyocrites  .^"  In  his 
voice  and  manner  he  seemed  the  personification  of 
righteous  wrath  and  denunciation.  I  shivered  and 
grew  nervous  as  I  listened,  and  the  whole  congregation 


198  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

sat  as  if  spellbound,  I  do  not  think  he  made  a  single 
comment  until  he  had  finished  the  36th  verse,  then  he 
said  something  like  this  :  "  These  are  the  words  of 
divine  indignation  against  those  vi^ho  had  trodden  down 
and  oppressed  the  weak  and  the  poor,  in  the  name  of 
religion  ;  now  listen  to  the  words  of  divine  love  and 
compassion  that  pitied  while  it  rebuked."  And  then 
his  whole  manner,  expression  of  countenance,  tone  of 
voice,  everything  changed,  as  he  read  the  remaining 
verses  :  "  O  Jerusalem  !  Jerusalem  !"  etc.  When  he 
concluded,  the  tears  were  running  down  his  own  cheeks, 
and  in  all  the  house  I  think  there  were  but  very  few 
dry  eyes.  

Mr.  Beecher's  love  of  the  beautiful  is,  in  a  general 
way,  known  and  read  of  all  men.  The  methods  of  its 
manifestation  are  not  so  generally  understood.  A  few 
of  his  mercantile  friends  have  glimpses  of  it,  and  very 
cheerfully  contribute  to  its  gratification.  It  need  not 
be  said  that  his  enjoyment  of  the  beautiful  is  unselfish 
— that  it  is  increased  by  the  sharing  with  others.  A 
jeweller  friend  occasionally  makes  up  a  package  of  rare 
and  precious  stones,  of  exquisite  colors  and  forms. 
These  Mr.  Beecher  will  carry  to  his  own  home  or  to 
the  home  of  another.  The  family  gather  around  the 
table — suitably  covered  for  the  purpose — and  partake 
of  a  costless  intellectual  feast,  the  foundation  for  which 
is  laid  in  values  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars. 


At  another  time  a  huge  roll  is  landed  at  the  door,  and 
in  due  time  the  parlor  and  parlor  furniture  are  covered 
with  rugs,  literally  of  all  nations,  the  result  of  a  forag- 


HIS   LOVE  OF  PRECIOUS   STONES.  199 

ing  expedition  among  dealers  in  sucli  articles.  Mr. 
Beecher  has  enjoyed  the  study  and  selection  of  these 
in  the  great  warehouse,  but  now  only  the  best  of  the 
great  stock  is  brought  where  he  can  fairly  revel  in  their 
beauty.  No  child  could  manifest  more  unaffected 
pleasure.  He  sits  upon  his  knees  ;  lies  upon  the  floor  ; 
assumes  all  attitudes,  known  or  unknown,  whereby  the 
light  or  shade  can  be  varied  or  the  contrasts  of  color 
made  apparent.  For  hours  the  charm  remains,  and  is 
finally  broken  only  to  be  again  renewed  with  beautiful 
objects  of  another  kind. 

Upon  the  same  subject  another  gentleman  says  :  My 
personal  intercourse  with  him  has  been  confined  prin- 
cipally to  one  subject  with  its  kindred  topics,  namely, 
"  precious  stones."  We  have  had  a  good  many  talks 
about  them.  It  is  my  business,  and  I  have  various 
kinds  for  sale,  and  I  really  feel  that  he  has  often  in- 
spired me  with  a  deej)er  love  for  them  and  a  stronger 
desire  to  know  more  about  them,  especially  when  he  says 
in  his  rather  cutting  way,  "  Of  all  the  business  men 
I  come  in  contact  with,  it  seems  to  me  that  jewellers 
know  less  about  their  business  than  any  others.' '  Com- 
pared with  him,  perhaps,  they  do  ;  few  have  as  strong 
a  love  for  precious  stones  as  he,  and  few  have  the  time 
to  devote  to  the  study  of  them.  Whenever  I  receive 
anything  out  of  the  ordinary  line,  my  thoughts  invari- 
ably turn  to  him,  and  I  read  up  about  it,  and  then 
show  it  to  him,  and  often  I  find  he  knows  all  about  it, 
and  has  some  story  to  tell  about  one  he  has  seen  some- 
where. It  is  his  habit  to  go  into  jewefry  stores  and 
lai)idaries'  shops,  in  his  lecture  trips  through  the  coun- 


200  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

try,  seeking  curiosities  and  desirous  of  finding  some- 
thing better  than  he  has  already,  for  he  always  carries 
in  his  pocket  some  precious  stones.  I  have  met  him  on 
the  ferryboats,  when  he  would  beckon  to  me  to  come  and 
see  a  fine  specimen  of  some  stone  he  had  Just  secured, 
regardless  of  the  gaze  of  the  cabinf  ul  of  people,  and  ap- 
parently entirely  unconscious  of  the  "  scene"  in  which 
he  was  the  central  figure,  eager  only  to  show  some- 
thing that  would  force  me  to  admit  was  a  little  better 
than  any  I'd  ever  seen  before,  as  well  as  to  give  me  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  the  stone  itself.  He  has  often  given 
utterance  to  beautiful  thoughts  as  he  has  feasted  his 
eyes  on  some  stones  that  would,  of  course,  sound  strange 
coming  from  any  one  else,  but  if  a  salesman  could  in- 
dulge in  similar  flights  of  fancy  and  imagination,  and 
make  his  customer  see  all  as  he  does  in  the  stones,  he 
could  make  a  fortune.  His  description  of  the  stone 
called  "  cat's-eye"'  I  often  quote  to  personal  and  mu- 
tual friends.  He  said  he  felt  "  as  if  there  were  a  soul 
back  of  it  looking  out  through  the  rays  of  light  flash- 
ing over  it,  and  in  eyery  way  he  looked  at  it,  it  seemed 
like  a  thing  of  life. "  I  remember  once  showing  him  a 
magnificent  garnet,  and  we  discussed  various  ways  of 
mounting  it,  and  I  said  it  was  handsome  enough  to  be 
surrounded  with  diamonds,  and  he  said  (in  substance), 
''  Oh,  no  !  it  would  never  do  to  jDut  diamonds  with  it, 
they  would  spoil  it,  they  are  too  showy,  A  diamond 
seems  to  say,  'Here,  look  at  me;  don't  mind  those 
other  stones,'  and  fairly  draws  the  eyes  toward  it  in 
spite  of  yourself.  That  garnet  should  have  pearls 
around  it ;  the  stone  is  of  a  positive  color  and  can 
stand  alone,  and  the  setting  should  be  of  a  contrasting 


INCIDENTS   OF   HIS   PASTORATE.  201 

beauty.  Pearls  are  just  the  thing,  for  they  have  a 
peculiar  beauty  of  their  own,  and  at  the  same  time 
harmonize  with  the  garnet.  Why,  it's  like  a  well- 
matched  husband  and  wife.  The  garnet  is  larger, 
stronger,  and  of  a  positive  character,  and  regal  in 
color,  and  should  have  pearls  as  helpmeet.  They  are 
equally  beautiful  in  their  milder,  softer  way,  and  are 
in  perfect  harmony,  both  choice,  yet  neither  predomi- 
nating, and  make  a  perfect  whole." 


A  member  of  Mr.  Beecher's  church  and  a  teacher 
in  Plymouth  Sabbath-school  for  many  years,  and  one 
who  is  always  on  hand  on  Plymouth  occasions,  re- 
lates :  Out  of  all  the  numerous  reminiscences  of  Mr. 
Beecher  in  various  lights,  as  man  or  minister,  as  lec- 
turer, thinker,  personal  friend  or  citizen,  let  me  choose 
simply  a  few  things  that  show  his  peculiarities  as  pas- 
tor, the  very  aspect  in  which  he  has  not,  in  general, 
been  generally  well  understood  either  outside  in  the 
Christian  world  nor  even  inside  in  our  microcosm  of 
Brooklyn  itself. 

1.  He  aims  to  avoid  rather  than  to  allay,  to  prevent 
rather  than  to  cure.  An  instance  of  this  happened 
when  I  was  clerk  of  the  Examining  Committee.  The 
examination  of  applicants  for  membership  by  him  va- 
ries endlessly  according  to  the  age,  the  temperament, 
the  replies,  and  whole  personality  of  the  individual 
candidates.  He  examines  mainly  on  the  vital  points 
of  personal  relations  of  obedience,  reverence,  and  love 
to  the  Lord  Jesus  as  Saviour  and  guide  of  life. 

A  candidate  who  was  a  man  in  middle  life  had  given 
answers  so  very  laconic,   yes  or  no,  that  when    Mr. 


202  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

Beecher,  as  usual,  gave  it  to  the  committee  to  ask  any 
other  questions,  and  all  else  were  silent,  I  asked,  rather 
to  cover  the  whole  ground  at  once  than  any  single 
point,  "  Have  you  ever  been  troubled,  sir,  by  serious 
doubts  concerning  any  of  the  fundamental  doctrines  of 
the  Gospel  ?"  "  None,  sir,"  he  answered,  and  his  ex- 
amination then  terminated. 

Mr.  Beecher  turned  toward  me,  as  I  sat  very  near, 
and  said,  in  clear  but  very  low  voice,  inaudible  except 

to  me  alone,    ''Brother  H ,  you  may   suspect  an 

apple-tree  is  full  of  owls,  but  it  is  not  worth  while  to 
throw  a  stone  or  club  up  into  it  to  find  out." 

2.  As  pastor,  he  aims  to  make  good  Christians  more 
than  to  train  up  theologians.  At  an  annual  pew-let- 
ting, I  heard  a  member  say,  "  Mr.  Beecher,  we  hope 
you  will  preach  a  very  sound  gospel  next  year,  be- 
cause some  things  you  have  lately  said  did  not  sound 
very  orthodox  to  us  New  Englanders." 

With  leisurely  and  tranquil  composure,  he  replied, 
'^  Well,  as  for  you,  brother,  you  are  very  sure  to  hear 
quite  as  much  gospel  as  you  will  live  up  to."  His  an- 
swer was  geometrically  perfect. 

3.  He  measures  the  value. of  men  by  their  actual  pow- 
er and  fruitfulness.  When  Rev.  J.  E.  Roy,  D.D.,  first 
introduced  me  to  him,  when  Roy  and  I  were  students 
in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  Mr.  Beecher  asked, 
"  Who  is  your  Professor  of  Pastoral  Theology  ?"  and 
when  told  "  Rev.  Thomas  H.  Skinner,  D.D.,"  added  : 
"  That  is  the  most  important  chair  in  a  seminary,  and 
the  test  whether  the  professor  is  a  suitable  man  is 
whether  he  turns  out  good  pastors.  It  is  very  much 
like  fishing.     A  gentleman  may  read  up  on  ichthy- 


INCIDENTS  OF  HIS   PASTORATE.  203 

ology  and  angling,  and  equip  himself  with  the  finest 
rod  and  hooks  and  flies,  but  not  catch  a  half  dozen 
trout  all  day,  whereas  a  boy  may  come  down  to  the 
brook  barefoot,  when  the  sun  is  only  an  hour  high, 
with  a  plain  hook,  string,  and  pole  from  an  alder-bush, 
and  catch  a  basketful  by  dark.  The  Iwy  is  the  real 
fisherman."  He  turned  to  others  in  the  crowd  that 
thronged  around  him  in  the  old  "  Social  Parlors,"  but 
his  illustration  had  hooked  us.  See  what  Brother  Roy 
has  become. 

A  volume  might  be  written  of  the  incidents  in  those 
*'  Parlors,"  one  of  the  best  features  of  his  earlier  pas- 
torate. 

4.  As  a  pastor,  Mr.  Beecher  is  i^redominantly  the 
ruling  head  and  powerful  heart  of  his  church  and  con- 
gregation, as  instinctively  by  his  own  nature  he  must 
be,  and  as,  according  to  Congregational  jDolity,  he  is 
delegated  and  appointed  to  lead.  He  sees  all  symptoms 
at  a  glance.  He  foresees  swiftly  the  upshot  of  any 
movement,  the  motives  of  acti\^e  men,  the  drift  of  an 
argument  toward  conduct.  He  is  very  adroit  in  pre- 
venting difiiculties  by  foresight,  and,  perhaps,  even 
more  so  in  dispersing  or  dissolving  them  when  actually 
risen  as  thunder  clouds  in  his  sky.  By  warmth  of 
love,  by  glowing  sympathy  of  numbers,  he  rallies  the 
majority  to  the  right  side,  and  trims  the  steamer  to 
the  storm.  When  the  Congregational  Council  met  in 
his  church,  to  investigate  the  question  of  his  innocence, 
he  said  to  a  group  of  us,  and  his  face  beamed  with  the 
triumphant  certainty  of  the  result  which  his  intimate 
friends  foresaw,  "  Yes,  the  best  place  for  the  dele- 
gates will  be  in  the  homes  of  our  people.     They  will 

13 


204  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

come  resolved  and  determined  not  to  be  influenced,  but 
the  spirit  of  our  people  will  melt  them  down,  just  as  a 
hard  winter  apple  resolves  to  defy  the  blazing  fire 
when  it  has  been  put  down  to  roast.  Bless  you  !  the 
old  fellow  loses  all  his  firmness,  cooks  clear  through, 
and  in  a  little  while  is  roasted  and  sputtering  and 
singing  with  Joy."  

In  a  short  talk  after  prayer-meeting,  to  a  handful 
of  old  members,  he  rather  soliloquized  than  other- 
wise, in  regard  to  himself,  and  the  chief  bent  of  his 
mind  in  contrast  with  Dr. . 

' '  He  reasons  with  the  greatest  power  and  most  nat- 
urally from  the  past  to  the  present :  I  reason  forward. 
He  points  out  very  clearly  the  duties  of  the  present  day  : 
I  naturally  look  ahead  to  see  and  anticipate  what  topics 
of  thought  will  fill  men's  minds  in  the  future.  It  is 
natural  and  it  is  hereditary  for  each  of  us  to  think  and 
work  in  his  own  way.  He  revels  in  historical  studies, 
whereas  I  foresee  from  current  events  what  way  the  tides 
/  are  settmg,  and  try  to  form  opinions  for  myself  and 
my  people  in  advance,  to  be  ready  in  time  of  need." 


/ 


About  ten  years  ago,  as  the  Sabbath  approached  in 
whicli  Plymouth  Church  was  to  take  up  a  collection  in 
behalf  of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign  Missions,  and  I  had  spent  some  time  in  ob- 
taining pledges  from  prominent  members  as  to  the 
amount  they  would  contribute  to  the  cause,  I  called 
upon  Mr.  Beecher.  It  was  late  on  Saturday  evening. 
He  had  just  arrived  home  from  a  weekly  lecturing  tour. 
I  laid  before  him  my  errand.  It  was  to  ask  him  to  give 


THE  BETHEL.  205 

US  a  sermon  on  tlie  cause  of  missions  the  next  morning. 
He  answered,  "  Perhaps  I  will,  and  perhaps  I  will  not. 
I  have  just  reached  home,  have  been  absent  all  the 
week,  lecturing  every  night.  I  am  quite  tired  out.  If 
I  get  rested  and  feel  bright  I  will  give  you  the  sermon." 
The  next  morning  he  appeared  in  the  pulpit  as  fresh 
and  vigorous  as  ever.  The  opening  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  clearly  indicated  the  subject  on  which  his 
mind  was  engaged.  He  announced  his  text  Acts  17  : 
26  :  "  And  hath  made  of  one  hloodall  nations  of  men 
for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth. ' '  It  was  one  of 
his  happiest  efforts,  and  the  contribution  was  one  of 
the  largest  ever  made  by  Plymouth  Church  in  behalf 
of  that  cause 

A  gentleman  relates  an  incident  that  occurred  in  the 
year  of  1866  or  '67,  a  year  or  so  previous  to  the  build- 
ing of  the  "  Bethel"  in  Hicks  street,  Brooklyn,  "  The 
Bethel  Mission  of  Plymouth  Church." 

"  I  was  present  one  Sabbath  when  Mr.  Beecher  was 
making  an  urgent  appeal  to  his  congregation  to  contrib- 
ute openly  to  the  fund  for  building ;  after  urging  it 
upon  all  his  people,  in  his  own  good  way,  which  he 
knows  so  well  how  to  do,  he  said,  '  Now,  I  want  you 
to  go  down  into  your  pockets,  and  go  down  deep ;  I 
want  you  to  put  up  a  building  which  will  be  for 
mechanics,  workingmen,  and  women,  and  the  poorer 
classes  of  this  ward  (First  Ward),  where  they  can  all 
worship  together '  (this  beside  the  Sunday-school).  It 
struck  a  chord  in  my  heart  then,  that  I  firmly  believe 
vibrates  still,  and  caused  me  to  believe  that  one  more 
at  least  "  cared  for  my  soul." 


206  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

In  any  account  of  Mr.  Beecher'  s  life  mention  ought 
surely  to  be  made  of  the  stand  he  took  for  freedom  of 
speech  in  1850,  during  the  excitement  attending  the 
passage  of  the  compromise  measures  of  that  period. 
The  tide  of  opposition  to  the  an ti- slavery  movement  at 
that  time  was  higher  and  more  tempestuous  than  at 
any  other  period  since  the  mobs  of  1835.  There  was  a 
deliberate  determination  on  the  part  of  men  eminent  in 
public  station,  and  representing  both  the  great  political 
parties,  to  put  that  movement  down,  to  overawe  its 
champions,  and  consign  its  leaders  to  public  infamy. 
Webster,  in  his  seventh  of  March  speech,  had  lent  the 
weight  of  his  influence  to  promote  this  design,  and 
Professors  Stuart  and  Woods  at  Andover,  with  a  large 
following  of  other  eminent  clergymen,  were  struggling 
to  reconcile  the  conscience  of  the  North  to  the  infamies 
of  the  Fugiti^sie  Slave  law  then  pending  before  Con- 
gress, and  to  persuade  the  people  to  stamp  out  the  anti- 
slavery  agitation  as  a  fanatical  and  scarcely  less  than 
treasonable  war  upon  the  very  life  of  the  nation.  Many 
who  had  taken  part  in  that  agitation  were  affrighted, 
and  some  had  even  gone  over  to  the  pro-slavery  side. 
Timid  men  on  every  side  trembled  lest  the  heavens 
should  fall  and  the  country  be  left  to  destruction,  un- 
less the  people  would  consent  to  stop  the  discussion  of 
slavery  and  obey  the  demands  of  the  slave  power. 

In  this  state  of  affairs  the  American  Anti- Slavery 
Society  held  its  anniversary  at  the  Broadway  Taber- 
nacle in  New  York,  in  May,  1850.  This  society  had 
openly  repudiated  "  the  compromises  of  the  Constitu- 
tion," and  the  Constitution  itself  on  their  account,  and 
was  therefore  the  object  of  special  hostility  and  oppro- 


MR.  BEECHER   AND   WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  207 

brium.  Its  meetings  were  invaded  by  a  mob,  led  by  a 
notorious  political  "  rough,"  and  turned  into  a  scene 
of  excitement  dangerous  to  property  and  life.  Public 
sentiment  in  New  York  winked  at  the  mob  as  excusa- 
ble, if  not  patriotic,  and  it  was  a  serious  question 
whether  the  liberty  of  speech  could  be  preserved.  Mr. 
Beecher,  though  hostile  to  slavery,  did  not  agree  with 
Garrison  and  his  associates  in  their  attitude  toward  the 
Constitution  and  the  Union,  but  thought  them  very 
unwise.  He  might,  as  others  did,  have  made  of  this 
difference  an  excuse  for  coolly  consenting  to  see  their 
meetings  broken  up  by  violence.  But  he  was  sagacious 
enough  to  perceive  that  if  freedom  of  speech  were  to 
be  preserved,  it  must  be  preserved  for  all,  and  if  it 
were  to  be  lost  for  any  it  would  be  lost  for  all.  He  de- 
termined, therefore,  to  make  a  conspicuous  protest 
against  the  New  York  mob.  He  was  by  no  means 
sure  that  his  own  church  and  society,  if  consulted  be- 
forehand, would  support  him.  He  took  counsel  of  a 
few  personal  friends,  wliom  he  could  inspire  with  his 
own  enthusiasm  for  liberty,  and  by  a  sort  of  moral  coup 
d'etat  forced  open  the  doors  of  Plymouth  Church  for 
a  speech  by  Wendell  Phillij)s  before  those  who  would 
have  prevented  the  measure,  if  possible,  had  time  to 
rally.  By  Judicious  effort  the  city  officials  were  in- 
duced to  lend  their  support  to  an  effort  to  set  Brook- 
lyn, in  contrast  with  New  York,  as  the  home  of  free 
speech  for  all  men  on  the  slavery  question.  The  meet- 
ing was  held,  and  the  lecture  of  Mr,  Phillips  delivered 
in  peace,  though  a  mob  gathered  in  the  street  and 
howled  around  the  doors. 

It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  exaggerate  the  value 


208  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

of  this  testimonial  to  the  priceless  right  of  free  discus- 
sion at  that  solemn  crisis.  The  pro-slavery  party 
gnashed  its  teeth  with  rage,  but  the  friends  of  freedom 
took  fresh  courage  and  hope.  The  action  of  Mr. 
Beecher  gathers  additional  lustre  when  contrasted  with 
that  of  another  clergyman  who  took  pains  to  persuade 
the  proprietors  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  to  shut  its 
doors  thereafter  against  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  thus  compelling  it  to  hold  its  anniversary  for 
two  successive  years  in  the  interior  of  the  State.  Mr. 
Beecher,  however,  had  the  privilege  of  welcoming  the 
society  to  New  York  again  in  1853. 


Speaking  of  sounds,  Mr.  Beecher  said,  "It  is  curi- 
ous to  note  the  elective  power  of  the  ear,  how  it  will 
search  out  and  choose  the  sound  it  wants  to  hear  amid 
a  multitude  of  others.  The  other  day  I  was  in  that 
Babel,  the  Gold  Room.  I  sat  by  the  secretary  ;  and 
amid  all  the  clamorous  shouting  and  hallooing  of  the 
frantic  brokers,  when  I  could  distinguish  nothing  but 
a  general  din,  he  quietly  noted  and  set  down  the  bids, 
the  offers,  the  sales,  as  they  occurred. 

"  In  a  room  full  of  chatting  women,  if  one  of  them 
has  a  child  upstairs  and  it  whimj)ers,  how  quick  she 
will  catch  the  sound,  separate  and  know  it  from  all  the 
clatter  about  her,  and  go  to  the  child  ! 

"  And  just  so  it  is  in  all  hearing  ;  we  are  continually 
training  our  ears  to  select  and  take  note  of  special 
things.  How  you  know  the  creak  of  every  door  and 
the  peculiar  snap  of  every  lock  in  the  house  !  Every 
friend's  footstep  is  characteristic  to  us  of  his  coming 
and  of  his  person.     We  insensibly  train  ourselves  to 


HIS    SUSCEPTIBILITY   TO    SOUND.  209 

Tiear,  and  just  as  truly  we  train  ourselves  not  to  hear. 
I  am  so  used  to  my  little  French  clock  at  my  bedside, 
that  strikes  the  hours  and  quarters,  that  I  never  notice 
it.  And  sometimes  when  I  have  wanted  to  know  what 
time  it  was  and  waited  patiently  for  the  next  quarter, 
I  have  known  myself  to  lie,  listening  at  first,  but  pretty 
soon  getting  into  a  train  of  thought  and  hearing  noth- 
ing of  my  busy  little  clock  for  a  whole  hour  with  its 
four  quarter- strikings. 

"  For  the  matter  of  that,  though,  I  have  sometimes 
been  so  lulled  to  thoughtfulness  by  the  sound  of  my 
own  voice  that  I  forget  that  I  am  reading.  Last  Sun- 
day, for  instance,  I  had  been  reading  away,  nearly  a 
whole  chapter  of  the  Bible,  in  church,  and  suddenly 
started  into  consciousness  of  it,  having  been  at  the 
same  time  led  off  into  an  intense  study  of  my  sermon 
that  was  to  come.  I  was  scared.  I  asked  myself, 
'  Why — what — have  I  really  been  reading,  and  going  on. 
all  right  1 '  I  looked  at  the  congregation,  but  they 
were  serene  enough,  and  my  machine  had  evidently 
"been  going  on  straight  all  the  while  ;  so,  with  a  gulp 
of  relief,  I  finished  my  chapter. 

"  Sounds  have  a.  distinct  physical  effect  upon  me. 
Music  always  affects  me  very  strongly.  At  first  I  list- 
en to  it ;  but  soon  it  lulls  my  outward  senses,  and  I 
begin  to  have  all  manner  of  imaginations  and  fancies 
teeming  in  my  brain.  I  forget  the  music  and  only 
recognize  the  effect  it  has  had  upon  me  after  it  has 
stopped." 


When  Mr.  Beecher  was  about  to  begin  the  first  of 
his  three  years  of  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching  (on  the 


210  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

Sage  foundation  for  the  "  Lyman  Beeclier  Lecture- 
sMp,"  in  the  Yale  Theological  School),  it  had  been 
arranged  to  have  Mr.  EUinwood  report  them  for  The 
OfiHstian  Union  and  for  book  publication.  They  were 
generally  expected  to  be  important  and  interesting,  but 
many  wondered  how  he  would  acquit  himself  in  so 
unaccustomed  a  position,  as  they  were  to  be  given,  not 
only  before  the  whole  body  of  theological  students, 
but  before  the  theological  faculty  as  well  (and,  as  it 
turned  out,  not  only  these  but  the  collegiate  faculty 
also  was  largely  rejDresented,  and  the  clergy  of  all  the 
region  round  about). 

The  day  before  he  was  to  go  up  to  New  Haven  to 
open  the  course  I  asked  him,  "  Have  you  got  your 
plan  pretty  well  laid  out  ?"" 

"  H'm — well — yes — no  ;  well,  I  know  where  the 
woods  are  that  I'm  going  to  hunt  my  game  in,  and 
that's  about  all  I  can  expect  yet  awhile." 

He  had  a  bad  night,  as  it  hai)pened,  not  feeling 
well ;  took  the  10  o'clock  train  next  morning  to  New 
Haven  ;  went  to  his  hotel,  got  his  dinner,  lay  down 
and  had  a  naj).  About  2  o'clock  he  got  up  and  began 
to  shave,  without  having  been  able  to  get  at  any  plan 
of  the  lecture  to  be  delivered  within  an  hour.  Just  as 
he  had  his  face  lathered  and  was  beginning  to  strop  his 
razor,  the  whole  thing  came  out  of  the  clouds  and 
dawned  on  him.  He  dropped  his  razor,  seized  his 
pencil,  and  dashed  off  the  memoranda  for  it,  and 
afterward  CQt  himself  badly,  he  said,  thinking  it 
out. 

That  was  the  lecture  on  "  What  is  Preaching?"  of 
which  the  venerable  Dr.   Leonard  Bacon  said,  "  If  I 


THE   YALE   LECTURES   ON   PREACHING.  211 

had  heard  such  talk  as  that  before  I  began  to  preach 
it  would  have  made  a  different  preacher  of  me." 

The  first  series  on  ''  The  Personal  Elements  which 
Bear  an  Imj^ortant  Relation  to  Preaching,"  and  the 
second  on  ' '  The  Social  and  Religious  Machinery  of  the 
Church,"  were  ujjon  themes  familiar  and  easy  to  him  ; 
but  the  third,  in  which  he  had  committed  himself  to 
treat  of  "Methods  of  Using  Christian  Doctrines,"  he 
rather  dreaded — or  rather,  under  all  the  circumstances, 
he  felt  it  a  somewhat  difficult  and  critical  task,  and 
therefore  he  might  have  been  expected  to  jirepare  it 
somewhat  more  formally  and  completely  than  he  had 
done  the  others. 

The  day  before  he  was  to  begin  I  asked  him  as  be- 
fore, "  Do  you  know  pretty  nearly  the  line  of  treat- 
ment you  are  to  take  ?" 

' '  Yes,  in  a  way.  I  know  what  I  am  going  to  aim 
at,  but  of  course  I  don't  get  down  to  anything  specific. 
I  brood  it,  and  ponder  it,  and  dream  over  it,  and  pick 
up  information  about  one  point  and  another  ;  but  if 
ever  I  tliink  I  see  the  plan  opening  up  to  me  I  don't 
dare  to  look  at  it  or  to  put  it  down  on  paper.  If  I  once 
write  a  thing  out,  it  is  almost  impossible  for  me  to 
kindle  up  to  it  again.  I  never  dare,  nowadays,  to 
write  a  sermon  during  the  week  ;  that  always  kills  it ; 
I  have  to  think  around  and  about  it,  get  it  generally 
ready,  and  Xh^Vifuse  it  when  the  time  comes." 

It  was  at  the  close  of  this  third  series  that  the  entire 
theological  faculty  of  Yale  united  in  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Beecher  (March  19th,  1874),  in  the  course  of  which 
they  said :  "  Seldom,  indeed,  is  the  opportunity 
offered  of  listening  to  discourses  or  topics  connected 


212  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

with  the  Christian  ministry,  which  are  at  once  so  ear- 
nest, insiDiring,  and  instructive  ;' '  and  expressed  a  con- 
viction that  "  they  must  prove  eminently  quickening 
and  permanently  useful." 


It  is  worth  while,  perhaps,  to  have  felt  how  utterly 
impossible  it  is  to  preserve  in  types  or  even  afterward 
to  define  the  impression  which  is  given  to  most  men 
merely  by  being  in  his  presence.  It  is  an  ineffable 
personal  influence,  and  must  be  felt  to  be  entirely 
known.  I  had  heard  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  from 
afar  all  my  life,  but  thought  of  him  as  a  fixed  star  afar 
off.  My  first  impression  of  him  was  disappointing.  I 
had  expected  to  be  awed  with  a  kind  of  solemn  fright 
in  the  presence  of  so  great  a  man.  But  here  was  the 
most  ordinary  of  mortals  sitting  in  his  arm-chair  talk- 
ing as  freely  and  simj)ly  as  a  child.  I  said  to  myself, 
"  Is  this  my  great  man  f  He  joked  at  me  about  the 
wear  and  tear  of  light- haired  nervous  people,  a  text  to 
suggest  several  characteristic  remarks  upon  the  relations 
of  temperament  to  religion.  I  should  have  gone  away 
in  some  wonder  at  such  a  man's  reputation,  if  he  had 
not  been  led  out  into  a  general  talk  about  religious  re- 
vivals. In  this  conversation  the  great  imagination  of 
the  man  began  to  excite  my  interest.  It  was  during 
the  winter  of  the  revival  at  Plymouth  Church,  1881-82. 
Mr.  Beecher  referred  to  the  revival  method  in  a  very 
discriminating  figure,  or  rather  fiood  of  images  if  I  may 
say,  that  seemed  to  spring  out  like  scintillations  of 
aurora  lights.  Com^Daring  the  work  that  was  going  on 
in  his  own  church  to  that  which  he  had  witnessed  in 
his  boyhood  and  with  other  work  which  was  progress- 


REVIVALS.  213 

ing  at  anotlier  Brooklyn  cliurcli,  lie  said  :  "  We  try  to 
win  everybody.  If  they  do  not  come  now  they  will  be 
better  prepared  to  come  next  year.  It  is  like  feeding 
humming-birds.  You  get  a  few  of  them  to  eat  out  of 
your  hand,  but  the  others  will  keep  growing  tamer 
every  year  if  you  don't  frighten  them.  We  don't  fire 
many  guns,  perhaps,  though  we  might  shoot  a  little 
more  game  for  the  time,  but  in  the  end  we  get  all  who 
would  be  likely  to  come  at  all,  and  don't  frighten 
away  the  others,  and  the  shy  ones  come,  and  they  are 
the  best  ones." 

Speaking  of  the  crude  revival  statements  which  he 
had  often  heard  in  his  younger  days,  such  as  "  that 
God  is  here  now,  and  may  not  come  this  way  again," 
he  made  this  among  other  figures  :  Man  is  open  to  in- 
fluences on  both  sides  of  his  nature.  He  opens  up  and 
he  opens  down.  If  he  makes  himself  susceptible  to 
the  Divine  Spirit  the  Spirit  comes  ;  if  he  is  susce^Dtible 
through  his  lower  life  to  the  other  influences  they 
come.  If  you  jout  out  on  your  garden-plot  red  clover 
and  honeysuckle  and  sweetbrier,  the  bees  and  honey 
birds  flock  there,  but  if  you  cover  it  with  filth  and 
carrion  it  will  attract  the  crows  and  buzzards  and 
jackals.  The  Holy  Spirit  doesn't  come  and  go  except 
as  man  himself  changes,  etc. 

These  figures  and  images  were  as  spontaneous  as  the 
flow  of  waters,  and  seemed  to  crowd  out  of  themselves. 
They  lead  me  to  think  that  Mr.  Beecher  is  Shakespea- 
rian and  Oriental  in  his  imagination.  I  know  of  no  one, 
except  John  in  the  Apocalypse,  Paul  in  his  Epistles, 
and  Shakespeare  in  Hamlet  and  the  Temijest,  who  ex- 
hibits such  habits  of  picture-thinking  as  Mr.  Beecher. 


214  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

I  saw  him  once  at  Ms  best.  It  was  not  a  burst  of 
oratory  nor  any  moment  of  triumphant  power.  It  was 
a  quiet  moment ;  it  was  as  if  the  very  air  was  weighted 
with  the  moisture  of  Divine  tenderness.  He  was  giv- 
ing the  charge  to  a  young  man  who  was  about  to  go  to 
the  far  West  as  a  missionary.  There  were  not  a  hun- 
dred peoj)le  present,  unless  the  heavenly  host  was 
there.  But  the  great  jpreacher  was  stirred  by  the  oc- 
casion to  memories  of  his  own  early  struggles  in  the 
West.  His  voice  was  low  and  at  times  broken,  and  the 
tears  in  his  voice  broke  the  fountains  loose  in  all  our 
eyes.  I  wish  I  could  remember  what  he  said.  It  was 
in  substance  a  charge  to  love  men  and  to  love  Christ, 
to  look  for  sources  of  power  only  in  heaven.  I  felt 
that  it  would  have  been  happiness  to  go  anywhere,  to 
any  work,  followed  by  such  words,  rather  by  such  a 
"presence^  for  it  was  after  all  only  such  words  perhaps 
as  any  man  might  have  said. 

A  phrase  w^hich  I  once  heard  him  coin  has  stayed  by 
me  ever  since.  He  was  expressing  the  office  of  the 
ministry.  He  said  of  Christ  that  he  went  about  set- 
ting men  right,  making  them  whole.  "  That  is  our 
mission,"  he  said,  "  we  are  men-menders.'''' 

He  is  very  tender  to  the  foolishnesses  of  young  men. 
At  our  club  on  one  occasion  the  question  arose 
whether  a  lie  was  always  wrong.  "  Christ  is  the  stand- 
ard," said  Mr.  Beecher.  "  You  can  decide  by  asking 
if  Christ  would  tell  a  lie. " 

I  had  the  temerity  to  say  that  if  it  were  not  in- 
herently wrong  he  might  be  conceived  of  doing  it. 
It  was  a  thoughtless  and  shocking  remark  as  I  made 
it.    I  was  ashamed  of  it,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the 


HIS  BRILLIANCY   IN   CONVERSATION.  215 

meeting  I  asked  Mr.  Beecher  if  it  were  irreverent  to 
speak  so. 

"  Oh,  no  !"  he  said,  "  you  were  serious  and  candid. 
It  was  well  enough  as  you  said  it,"  and  more  to  the 
same  effect.  In  fact,  he  never  has  any  small  moods  in 
which  he  holds  any  contem^Dt,  even  for  the  weakest  of 
men.  It  seems  to  me  that  he  has  such  an  instinct  at 
understanding  a  good  motive  that  he  never  fails  to 
know  whether  one  is  to  be  understood  as  erring  or 
vicious. 

His  greatness  is  even  more  apparent  in  conversations 
perhaps  than  in  the  j)ulpit.  It  has  frequently  occur- 
red that  in  the  most  natural  manner  possible  a  dozen 
men,  all  of  them  men  far  above  ordinary  calibre,  would 
find  themselves  suspending  the  eating,  the  whole  length 
of  the  table,  as  it  were  unconsciously,  to  listen  to  him. 
At  our  last  meeting  this  occurred.  Mr.  Beecher  was 
explaining  his  position  upon  the  question  of  reason  as 
an  authority  in  religious  matters  concurrently  with  the 
Bible.  I  think  the  superiority  of  the  man  appeared 
here  in  the  large  reach  of  his  views.  "  I  hold,"  he 
said,  "  the  catholic  idea  of  inspkation  in  the  church, 
not  in  the  organism  as  they  say,  but  whatever  men — all 
good  men — most  enlightened  by  Christian  and  human 
education  and  by  divine  influences  think  to  be  true,  at 
last  and  on  the  whole,  that  is  true  whether  the  Bible 
directly  reveals  it  or  not.  It  is  a  revelation,  and  God 
so  is  constantly  revealing  himself."  Mr.  Beecher  went 
on  thus  at  some  length,  and  it  was  not  until  he  stop- 
ped that  any  one  happened  to  notice  that  the  entire 
company  had  suspended  conversation  to  listen.  It 
was  not  respect  for  a  great  man's  words,  for  he  is  as 


216  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

familiar  and  common  in  a  company  as  the  smallest  man 
there  ;  it  was  a  natural  attraction. 

Mr.  Beecher  is  quick  at  a  joke  or  in  repartee,  and 
says  the  most  crushing  things  without  offence.  Bro- 
ther N.  relating  his  vacation  experience,  said  that  he 
had  been  kindly  allowed  a  double-length  vacation  this 
year. 

"Was  it  on  your  account  or  their  own?"  quickly 
asked  Mr.  Beecher.  You  cannot  describe  the  droUness 
of  it,  but  it  was  sufficient  to  convulse  the  company. 

Dr.  P.,  a  noted  temperance  advocate,  had  just  re- 
turned from  the  Continent.  He  was  relating  his  ex- 
periences. It  came  to  a  ]Doint  where  he  would  natu- 
rally have  alluded  to  the  drinking  habits  of  the  Euro- 
peans. Dr.  P.  seemed  to  shy  the  topic,  and  Mr. 
Beecher,  who  saw  a  look  of  anxiety  on  the  faces  of  the 
company,  with  an  inexpressibly  simple  sort  of  manner 
asked  cunningly  : 

"  How  did  you  like  the  water  on  the  Continent,  Doc- 
tor ?' '  It  was  a  long  time  before  we  recovered  from  the 
shock,  which  so  upset  Dr.  P.  that  he  did  not  rally  for 
the  evening. 

He  seems  to  know  everything.  An  old  and  well- 
known  pedagogue  in  Brooklyn  was  relating  at  the  club- 
table  reminiscences  of  the  early  movements  for  the  ed- 
ucation of  women.  Mr.  Beecher  was  busily  conversing 
nearly  at  the  other  end  of  the  table.  The  pedagogue 
named  Mrs.  L.  as  the  first  leader  in  the  movement, 
and  related  an  incident  or  two.  Mr.  Beecher,  who 
seemed  as  if  he  had  not  heard  at  all,  finished  his  own 
conversation,  and  then  turned  down  the  table  and  said, 
"  You  are  wrong  about  Mrs.   L.,  Brother  W.     She 


HIS   TENDERNESS.  217 

was  four  years  later  than  Miss  A.  The  movement 
began — "  and  from  that  point  he  went  on  with  a 
history,  giving  names,  dates,  incidents,  and  general 
facts,  as  if  that  had  been  his  study  for  life. 


In  all  the  many  attempts  to  delineate  the  character 
and  characteristics  of  Mr.  Beecher,  none  have  ever  ad- 
equately touched  upon  his  remarkable  power  of  com- 
forting those  who  are  bereaved.  The  tenderness  and 
exquisite  pathos  of  his  words  in  the  house  of  mourn- 
ing have  drawn  the  hearts  of  hundreds  toward  him 
during  the  many  years  of  his  ministry.  A  wonderful 
insight  has  been  given  him  into  the  very  recesses  of 
the  sorrowing  soul,  and  an  equal  gift  of  expression  for 
those  themselves  dumb  with  anguish.  His  words  of 
comfort  and  cheer  (I  cannot  call  them  addresses)  at 
funerals  alone  would  fill  a  volume.  I  attended,  thirty - 
three  years  since,  the  funeral  of  a  babe  eighteen  months 
of  age,  whose  mother  had  died  in  giving  it  birth,  and 
left  it  to  the  care  of  a  maiden  aunt.  Under  the  cir- 
cumstances it  would  not  have  been  strange  had  the 
services  been  merely  perfunctory.  Instead  of  this, 
Mr.  Beecher,  to  my  surprise  and  grateful  admiration, 
entered  as  by  intuition  into  the  feelings  of  this 
"  friend  who  had  borne  the  dear  child  in  her  heart, 
and  cradled  it  in  her  bosom."  His  prayer  for  her  was 
most  tender.  One  expression  I  have  never  forgotten — 
that  she  might  be  strengthened  "  when  sharp  remem- 
brances shoot  forth  from  unexpected  places."  AVas 
there  ever  a  more  incisive  toach  1  It  is  like  piercing 
between  the  joints  and  the  marrow.  Who  that  has 
been  bereaved  by  death  but  understands  it  ?  Who  has 


218  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

ever  before  put  the  experience  into  words  ?  And  the 
months  and  years  that  have  passed  since  that  first 
strong  imi)ression  was  made  upon  me  have  added  innu- 
merable expressions  of  similar  strength  and  beauty.  So 
delicate  and  tenuous  are  they,  and  so  struck  through 
with  "the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land,"  but 
that  Cometh  down  from  heaven,  and  are  full  of  spiritual 
effluence,  that  I  despair  of  giving  even  you  my  own 
impressions.  At  the  funeral  of  one  of  his  own  grand- 
children about  six  years  of  age — while  two  other  chil- 
dren were  lying  very  ill,  and  the  house  seemed  dark 
with  sorrow — his  first  words  were  :  "  We  are  met  to- 
gether to-day  to  rejoice  that  this  dear  child  has  ful- 
filled her  mission,  has  delivered  her  message  of  glad- 
ness and  hapi^iness  in  this  household,  and  is  so  soon 
permitted  to  return  to  her  Father  s  house  in  heaven," 
What  followed  I  know  not.  The  one  bright  comfort- 
ing thought  of  the  little  angel  messenger,  sent  with 
sunshine  on  her  brow,  and  in  her  winning  ways  bring- 
ing love  and  joy  to  earth,  took  possession  of  me,  and 
the  words  "  permitted  to  return"  has  never  left  me. 

Speaking  of  the  death  of  a  young  man  in  whom  he 
was  much  interested,  Mr.  Beecher  said,  "  I  cannot  feel, 
I  do  not  feel  that  he  has  left  us.  I  stand  expectant  as 
one  sometimes  in  summer  stands  waiting  for  a  bird  to 
begin  its  song  again,  and  does  not  know  that  it  has 
flown  out  of  the  tree.     I  was  always  patiently  waiting 

for  .     He   had  never  shown   himself.     Much  as 

there  was  very  striking  about  him,  I  always  felt  that 
we  had  only  seen  the  edge  of  color  in  an  unopened 
bud.  There  are  many  who  are  never  so  fair  again  as 
in  youth.    But  his  was  a  great  nature  that  I  felt  would 


HIS  VIEWS   OF  DEATH.  219 

never  get  its  full  swing  and  power  except  in  the  broad 
movements  of  human  life.  He  was  made  to  be  a  man 
among  men.  But  I  am  conscious  that  I  have  trans- 
ferred that  dear  and  bright  soul  to  heaven,  not  merely 
to  heaven  in  the  technical  sense,  but  to  everything 
toward  which  my  thoughts  move.  Nature  to  me  takes 
hue  and  color  from  every  one  who  is  gone,  and  the 
spirit  seems  to  have  mingled  in  such  a  sense  with  the 
universe,  that  it  presents  itself  from  every  element. 
For  Grod  took  him.  He  is  with  God,  and  where  is  God 
not?" 

14 


CHAPTER  X. 

EEMINISCEISrCES   BY   EEV.    S.    B.    HALLIDAY,    PASTORAL 
HELPER   OF   PLYMOUTH   CHURCH. 

MR.   BEECHER  IN  BROOKLYN. 

As  already  mentioned,  Mr.  Beecher  came  to  Brook- 
lyn from  Indiana  in  the  autumn  of  1847.  This  city 
had  then  sixty  thousand  inhabitants,  now  it  has  more 
than  half  a  million.  Churches  had  then  commenced 
rapidly  to  increase,  so  that  Mr.  Beecher  had  old  and 
popular  churches  and  ministers  with  whom  to  compete 
from  the  beginning. 

Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs,  learned,  eloquent,  and  popu- 
lar-, of  the  same  denomination,  was  already  thoroughly 
established  within  a  few  minutes'  walk  of  the  site 
chosen  for  the  Plymouth  Church  edifice.  Other  de- 
nominations had  preachers  in  their  pulpit  whose  fame 
had  even  spread  to  other  lands.  All  these  ministerial 
brethren  gave  a  cordial  welcome  to  Mr.  Beecher,  and  he 
soon  found  a  place  in  many  of  their  hearts.  One,  how^- 
ever,  of  the  brethren  does  not  seem  to  have  had  much 
confidence  in  the  permanence  of  Mr.  Beecher' s  popu- 
larity, which  was,  he  said,  like  wildfire  and  would 
goon  go  out.  He  would  give  him  "  just  six  months  to 
get  through."  Yet  for  thirty-five  years  the  Plymouth 
pastor  has  been  among  this  people,  preaching  the  Gos- 
pel, advocating  on  many  a  platform  all  kinds  of  local. 


Plymouth   Church. 


MEETINGS  IN   BROOKLYN.  223 

national,  and  foreign  needs,  lias  always  stood  in  the 
front  rank  of  orators,  and  has  enjoyed  to  this  day  as 
much  of  the  sympathy  and  approval  of  the  masses  as 
any  man  has  ever  had  in  similar  circumstances.  By 
his  own  jjeople  he  has  always  been  regarded  with  al- 
most idolatrous  affection  and  confidence,  and  all  who 
know  him,  with  perhaps  here  and  there  an  exception, 
would  doubtless  join  good  old  Dr.  Hodge  in  saying  as 
he  did,  after  hearing  his  lecture  to  the  students  of 
Princeton  Seminary,  "Whatever  there  may  be  wrong 
about  Mr.  Beecher's  head,  his  heart  is  right." 

As  an  instance  of  the  affectionate  regard  in  which 
the  Plymouth  pastor  is  held  by  the  multitude,  the  fol- 
lowing may  suffice.  Some  time  since  when  a  sad  ca- 
lamity had  befallen  our  city,  a  meeting  of  clergy  and 
influential  citizens  was  called  by  the  authorities  to 
consider  and  devise  some  plan  to  raise  means  for  the  re- 
lief of  many  sufferers.  During  the  discussion  the  pas- 
tor of  one  of  the  most  influential  churches  arose  and 
said,  "  Obtain  the  Academy  of  Music,  secure  the  ser- 
vices of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and  you  will  get  all  the 
money  you  want. ' '  That  single  utterance  voices  to- 
day the  thought  of  Brooklyn  as  to  his  influence  and 
power  to  move  the  people. 

The  following  half  dozen  meetings  were  held  at  the 
Academy  of  Music.  This  is  the  largest  public  hall  in 
the  city  and  holds  perhaps  4000  j)eople.  In  the  Au- 
tumn of  1879,  the  Republican  party  called  a  ratifica- 
tion meeting  in  the  Academy  of  Music,  to  be  addressed 
by  Senator  Conkling  and  others.  Mr.  Beecher,  who 
had  not  been  invited  to  speak,  went  to  hear  Mr.  Conk- 
ling, and  arrived  some  time  before  the  senator.     Ou 


224  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

Mr.  Beeclier'  s  appearance  at  the  rear  of  the  platform, 
the  vast  audience,  composed  of  all  classes,  rich  and 
poor,  laboring,  mercantile,  and  professional,  rose  en 
masse  and  cheered  most  enthusiastically  until  the 
arrival  of  Mr.  Conkling,  while  cry  after  cry,  "  Mr. 
Beecher,"  "Mr.  Beecher,"  came  from  every  part  of 
the  thronged  building.  Again,  at  the  close  of  Mr. 
Conkling' s  speech,  a  similar  course  was  pursued  by 
the  great  audience,  until  the  chairman  was  constrained 
to  ask  Mr.  Beecher  to  speak. 

The  Parnell  Reception  Meeting  occurred  soon  after, 
when  Mr.  Beecher  was  chosen  by  the  representatives  of 
Ireland,  to  give  their  welcome  to  the  man  whom  they 
considered  was  serving  their  race  most  earnestly  and 
successfully.  The  generosity  of  Mr.  Beecher' s  relig- 
ious views  and  his  tolerance  of  those  of  others  give 
him  a  just  claim  upon  the  appreciation  which  the  Irish 
manifested  to  Mm  on  this  occasion,  and  which  they 
never  lose  opportunity  fully  to  accord.  The  admira- 
tion manifested  for  Mr.  Beecher  was  unbounded. 

Few  weeks  only  had  elajDsed  when  Mr.  Beecher  was 
again  invited  to  address  "  The  AVomen's  Temperance 
Union"  presided  over  by  Rev.  Dr.  Cuyler.  While  his 
views  on  this  question,  as  to  measures,  are  not  so  rad- 
ical as  those  of  others,  and  while  he  earnestly  and  un- 
hesitatingly declares  total  abstinence  to  be  the  only 
safe  ground,  yet  he  cordially  extends  his  hand  to  those 
who  entertain  different  views  and  advocate  interme- 
diate measures. 

Again,  but  a  brief  period  elapsed,  when  a  great  char- 
ity meeting  afforded  another  occasion  for  the  citizens 
of  Brooklyn  to  call  to  their  aid  their  much-esteemed 


MEETINGS   IN   BROOKLYN.  325 

townsman.  A  brave  officer  in  arresting  a  man  was  so 
beaten  by  "  roughs"  that  he  died,  leaving  a  dependent 
family.  The  case  excited  the  warmest  sympathy  of 
the  Police  Department — a  committee  appointed  to  de- 
vise measures  for  relief — this  committee  decided  to  ask 
Mr,  Beecher  to  deliver  a  lecture  on  behalf  of  the  fam- 
ily ;  he  consented,  fifteen  thousand  tickets  were  sold, 
the  Academy  of  Music  could  not  contain  the  many 
thousands  who  flocked  to  hear  him,  and  the  wildest 
enthusiasm  prevailed  in  the  meeting. 

The  great  Channing  Memorial  Service,  held  in  April, 
1880,  has  seldom  been  equalled  by  any  meeting  either 
in  New  York  or  Brooklyn. 

The  Academy  of  Music  was  literally  packed.  The 
clergy,  irrespective  of  denomination,  were  there  in  large 
numbers.  Addresses  were  made  by  representative  men 
of  all  sects,  and  half  past  ten  o'clock  had  arrived  be- 
fore Mr.  Beecher  was  introduced.  It  was  no  easy  task 
to  take  a  wearied  audience  at  that  hour  and  hold  them 
for  forty-five  minutes,  but  he  did  it,  scarcely  a  person 
leaving  the  hall  during  the  address.  The  welcome 
accorded  him  at  the  beginning  of  his  address  was  most 
enthusiastic,  and  the  cheers  and  waving  of  handker- 
chiefs which  greeted  his  paragraphs  were  continued 
till  the  close. 

The  Garfield  Ratification  Meeting  closely  followed, 
when  Mr.  Beecher  was  among  the  chief  speakers,  and 
when  the  old  enthusiasm  on  seeing  him  and  hearing 
his  eloquent  utterances  showed  that  the  pastor  of  Plym- 
outh Church  still  lived  in  the  hearts  of  the  citizens, 
and  that  not  one  jot  or  tittle  of  their  regard  for  him  had 
abated. 


226  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

Thus  in  the  City  of  Brooklyn,  in  the  same  audience- 
room,  within  a  period  of  six  months,  were  there  six 
great  meetings  at  which  Mr.  Beecher  spoke,  and  on 
each  occasion  an  ovation  was  given  to  the  man  to  whom 
they  had  been  listening  for  the  third  of  a  century. 


CENTENNIAL  YEAR. 

During  the  entire  period  of  the  Centennial  Exhibi- 
tion in  Philadelphia,  Plymouth  Church  and  Mr. 
Beecher' s  residence  were  daily  sought  by  great  num- 
bers of  people,  some  on  foot,  many  in  carriages,  stop- 
ping in  front  of  the  plain  building  that  is  such  a  resort 
for  strangers  on  the  Sabbath,  taking  the  opportunity 
to  enter  and  inspect  the  place  where  the  man  preaches 
that  everybody  wants  to  hear.  Mr.  Beecher  was  away 
on  his  vacation  during  part  of  July  and  the  whole  of 
the  months  of  August  and  September,  and  yet  it  was 
evident  in  the  audience  during  these  Sabbaths  that 
many  visitors  to  the  Centennial  were  present.  There 
are  six  hundred  free  sittings  in  Plymouth  Church,  and 
if  the  pew-holders  are  not  in  their  seats  ten  minutes 
before  the  time  for  commencing  the  services,  the  ushers 
are  directed  to  fill  their  seats  with  strangers.  On  Mr. 
Beecher' s  return  so  great  was  the  throng  of  strangers, 
and  so  eager  were  they  to  hear  him,  that  his  own  peo- 
ple, always  so  anxious  to  hear  their  pastor  after  his 
vacation,  abandoned  their  seats  during  the  whole  month 
of  October  for  the  accommodation  and  gratification  of 
these  Centennial  visitors.  It  was  a  goodly  sight  to  see 
at  least  three  thousand  of  these  peoj^le  every  Sabbath, 
hanging  with  breathless  silence  upon  the  lips  they  had 


CENTENNIAL   YEAR.  227 

longed  to  hear.  Probably  every  State  and  Territory  in 
the  Union  had  its  representatives  in  each  of  the  con- 
gregations during  that  month.  Possibly  twenty  thou- 
sand strangers  enjoyed  the  hospitalities  of  Plymouth 
Church  during  that  season,  and  in  various  ways  man- 
ifested their  appreciation  of  the  kindness  thus  ex- 
tended. The  scene  which  the  church  presented  at 
these  services  was  very  remarkable,  and  such  as  are 
rarely  witnessed.  The  old  and  the  young,  the  rich 
and  the  poor,  persons  arrayed  in  the  extremes  of  fash- 
ion, could  be  seen  sitting  side  by  side  in  the  same 
pew  ;  and  the  whole  house  thus  filled  !  The  old  farm- 
er's motherly  wife  from  the  prairies  arrayed  in  the 
quaintest  possible  garb,  her  bronzed  and  sturdy  com- 
panion by  her  side  ;  an  eminent  jurist  and  his  refined, 
handsome,  and  fashionable  daughters  occupying  the 
balance  of  the  pew.  It  was  an  occasion  that  might 
well  stir  the  heart  of  Mr.  Beecher,  and  it  did,  for  the 
eight  sermons  which  he  preached  during  that  month 
were  all  that  could  be  expected — even  from  Tiim. 

At  the  close  of  each  of  these  services  great  multi- 
tudes availed  themselves  of  the  opportunity  to  shake 
hands  with  Mr.  Beecher,  and  to  mention  to  him  their 
names.  Their  feelings  appeared  to  be  profoundly  stir- 
red, and  their  manner  of  expressing  them  was  often 
very  touching.  A  large  matronly  woman  stayed  till 
all  had  left  the  house  at  one  of  the  morning  services, 
seeming  loath  to  leave  the  place.  She  was  evidently 
an  intelligent,  warm-hearted,  spiritually-minded  Chris- 
tian woman,  and  walking  from  the  church  toward  the 
pastor's  house,  she  said,  "  Well,  I  have  heard  that 
some  of  the    people  in  Brooklyn  talk  against  Mr. 


228  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

Beecher.     I  live  in  Oliio,  and  if  you  have  got  tired  of 
Mm  here,  we  would  like  to  have  him  out  there." 


MAGNANIMITY. 

Mr.  Beecher' s  career  has  been  distinguished  for 
generosity  and  magnanimity.  He  shuts  no  one  out 
from  sympathy  because  of  his  religious  views.  Other 
things  being  equal,  he  would  as  soon  help  a  Mohamme- 
dan or  a  i)agan  as  a  Christian.  All  men,  with  him, 
are  brethren,  having  only  one  God,  one  Saviour,  one 
Sanctifier  and  Comforter.  In  Catholic,  Protestant,  and 
sceptic  are  seen  men  for  whom  Christ  died,  and  whom 
he  would  brood  into  love  to  himself  and  mankind. 

Mr.  Beecher  has  j)robably  been  too  generous,  and  his 
symj)athy  and  love  too  indiscriminate.  But  his  yearn- 
ing toward  the  bad  has  been  like  His  who  ate  with 
publicans  and  sinners.  He  maintains  that  a  good  man, 
though  an  infidel,  is  better  and  less  harmful  than  a  had 
Christian.  He  has  even  maintained  that  the  Pope  is 
his  brother,  in  face  of  the  fact  that  the  Pope  will  not 
respond  to  his  fraternal  declarations.  He  has  eulo- 
gized the  conduct  of  some  men  whom  the  Church  has 
advertised  and  shunned  as'  very  dangerous.  I  think 
he  would  be  quite  willing  to  have  any  of  the  Catholic 
bishops  or  priests  occuj)y  his  pulpit,  and  should  Mr.  In- 
gersoll,  in  any  way,  be  permitted  to  tell  Plymouth  peo- 
ple how  to  be  saved,  the  pastor  would  see  that  they 
should  not  be  harmed  by  his  statements. 

Mr.  Beecher  is  not  made  of  butter  and  oil.  He  can 
become  quickly  and  readily  indignant,  even  awfully 
angrv  ;  but  he  does  not  seem  to  need,  as  much  as  most 


MAGNANIMITY.  229 

men,  tlie  admonition,  "  Let  not  the  snn  go  down  on 
your  wrath."  His  wrath  is  as  quickly  aroused  by  in- 
juries inflicted  upon  others  as  wpon  himself,  but  it  soon 
subsides.  He  may  be  also  quick  to  take  offence,  but 
he  has  the  happy  faculty  of  concealing  it  from  others, 
although  there  are  times  when  he  does  not  care  to  con- 
ceal it.  1  have  never  dared  to  quarrel  with  him.  The 
nearest  approach  to  it  was  in  arranging  an  engagement 
he  had  made  to  dedicate  the  new  Congregational  Church 
at  Middletown,  N.  Y.,  a  few  years  since.  After  the 
time  ajDpointed  for  the  dedication,  the  good  i:)astor  from 
Middletown  called  ujwn  me,  looking  as  if  his  last 
friend  but  one  had  abandoned  him,  and  in  a  most 
despondent  mood  said,  "  Yesterday  was  the  time  ap- 
pointed to  dedicate  our  church  ;  notice  had  been  wide- 
ly circulated  that  Mr.  Beecher  was  to  preach  the  ser- 
mon, and  before  the  time  for  commencing  the  services 
had  arrived,  the  house  was  crowded.  But  Mr.  Beecher 
was  not  there.  The  i^eople  waited  and  waited,  but  he 
did  not  come,  and  after  waiting  more  than  an  hour,  the 
dedication  was  postponed  and  the  people  dispersed." 
The  minister  was  greatly  dejected,  as  the  officers  were 
depending  on  the  collections  and  subscriptions  they 
hoped  to  obtain  on  the  occasion,  to  aid  them  in  meet- 
ing some  pressing  claims.  To  relieve  the  good  man,  I 
said,  "  Now  you  may  go  right  home  and  I  will  see 
that  Mr.  Beecher  makes  an  ai:)X)ointment  and  that  he 
does  not  overlook  it."  In  the  afternoon  I  called  upon 
the  i^astor  and  inquired  if  he  had  a  good  time  at  the 
dedication  yesterday.  With  a  most  forlorn  expression 
on  his  face  he  declared  he  "  had  forgotten  all  about 
it."     ''  Yes,"  I  said,  "  the  i^oor  minister  called  on  me 


1^0  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

this  forenoon  sad  and  sorry  enough.  I  told  him  you 
would  come  up  still  and  fulfil  the  appointment."  He 
immediately  said  with  earnestness,  ' '  I  toill,  when  shall 
I  go  ?"  "  Oh,"  I  replied,  "  you  must  decide  that ;  when 
ca7i  you  go  ?  Get  your  docket  and  see  what  your  en- 
gagements are."  He  and  Mrs.  Beecher  looked  over  for 
vacancies,  and  finally  fixed  upon  a  date,  and  asked  if 
that  would  do.  I  said,  "  You  can  make  the  time 
when  you  j)lease,  and  they  will  conform  to  it,"  and  ac- 
cordingly he  telegraphed  at  once  the  time  to  Middle- 
town.  Calling  upon  Mr.  Beecher,  two  or  three  days 
after,  the  moment  I  entered  he  exclaimed  with  em- 
phasis, ' '  You  have  got  me  into  another  scrape.  I  had 
an  engagement  already  on  that  date  you  selected,  and 
I  have  telegraphed  to  Middletown  I  cannot  come."  I 
answered,  "  If  you  are  in  any  scrape,  you  are  to 
blame,  I  am  not,  nor  did  I  make  any  mistake,  and  yoa 
must  telegraph  immediately  that  you  will  go  to  Mid- 
dletown at  the  time  appointed."  "  You  did  make  a 
mistake,  I  had  an  engagement,  and  I  won' t  telegraph 
again,"  was  uttered  with  more  emphasis  than  the  first 
accusation,  and  a  rejoinder  equally  emphatic  was  ten- 
dered, with  a  request  for  a  reproduction  of  the  docket 
for  examination.  Turning  to  a  particular  date,  when 
there  was  an  engagement,  "  There,  didn't  I  tell  you  I 
had  an  engagement  then  V  "  Who  said  you  had  not  ? 
I  did  not."  Looking  on  a  little  farther,  and  discover- 
ing that  I  was  right  and  he  was  wrong,  ' '  Well,  I  always 
did  need  a  guardian,"  was  his  admission,  and  I  added, 
"  I  wonder  your  father  did  not  appoint  one  for  you  be- 
fore he  died."  "  Oh,  he  needed  one  himself,"  was  his 
answer,  and  as  he  will  always  have  the  last  word,  I  re- 


MAGNANIMITY.  231 

tired  from  tlie  field.  All  I  wanted  was  that  he  should 
go  and  dedicate  the  church,  which  he  did  to  the  great 
comfort  and  satisfaction  of  the  formerly  disappointed 
minister  and  people. 

I  never  knew  any  attempt  on  Mr.  Beecher's  part  to 
revenge  an  injury.  So  ready  is  he  to  overlook  and  for- 
get, and  almost  to  bless  a  man  for  abusing  him,  that 
his  magnanimity  appears  sometimes  a  weakness. 

Just  subsequent  to  the  war,  a  minister  came  into  the 
prayer-meeting  who  had  been  absent  from  the  country 
for  several  months.  Throughout  the  war  he  had 
seemed  to  delight  in  speaking  and  writing  all  the  mean 
and  ugly  things  possible  of  Mr.  Beecher,  and  as  nearly 
false  and  libellous  as  they  could  be.  He  was  equally 
abusive  also  of  other  upholders  of  the  government.  On 
the  evening  alluded  to,  Mr.  Beecher,  calling  him  by 
name,  said,  "You  have  just  returned  from  Europe;  I 
am  sure  you  can  speak  of  something  that  you  have 
seen  and  heard  that  will  interest  us,  and  we  would  be 
glad  to  hear  them."  For  some  minutes  this  man  spoke 
of  various  religious  matters  in  London  connected  with 
missions  among  the  poor,  ragged  schools,  lodging- 
houses,  etc.,  so  as  to  interest  those  who  were  present. 
Calling  at  Mr.  Beecher's  house  after  the  meeting,  I 
found  him  reclining  in  his  library.  I  said,  rather 
abruptly,  "  The  only  thing  I  get  mad  with  you  about  is 
the  way  in  which  you  treat  those  men  who  go  round 
misrepresenting  and  abusing  you  and  the  church.  And 
an  angel  might  come  into  the  lecture-room  and  he  would 
not  get  half  the  attention  you  bestowed  on  that  man 
to-night."  To  which  he  answered,  "  I  believe  in  a  fel- 
low practising  once  in  a  while   what   he   preaches." 


232  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

This  ended  the  interview.  In  this  manner  he  generally 
disposes  of  those  whose  treatment  of  him  has  been  un- 
kind.    Another  incident  will  illustrate  this. 

Mr.  Beecher,  in  calling  at  my  house  one  morning,  met 
with  a,  gentleman  of  the  press  who  said  he  had  just 
come  from  the  house  of — mentioning  the  name  of  a 
legal  gentleman — and  he  declared  he  had  never  met 
a  man  who  would  say  anything  favorable  of  him.  The 
newspaper  man  added,  "  Nor  can  I,"  and  a  gentleman, 
standing  by  added,  "  N"or  can  I,  though  I  have  been 
in  Brooklyn  and  'New  York  nearly  a  lifetime."  Mr. 
Beecher  inter230sed  and  said,  ''  I  can  tell  you  of  a  good 
many  things  that  are  creditable  to  him  that  I  have 
known  personally,  and  much  that  I  have  learned  of 
others.  I  know  his  life  in  his  family  has  been  beau- 
tiful, the  training  of  his  children  has  been  everything 
that  could  be  expected  from  a  sincere  and  intelligent 
Christian  gentleman,  and  his  family,  in  order,  in  har- 
mony, in  affection,  have  shown  the  effects  of  his  train- 
ing. Then  E  know  the  treatment  of  the  large  number 
of  employes,  both  men  and  women,  in  his  service  has 
been  testified  to  by  them  as  that  of  real  courtesy, 
kindness,  and  sympathy." 

Yet  this  man  was  considered  to  have  been  one  of 
Mr.  Beecher' s  bitterest  enemies,  and  was  at  this  time 
supposed  to  be  utterly  inimical.  So  emphatic  was  this 
testimony  given  of  his  suj)j)osed  enemy  that  if  he  had 
appeared  at  that  moment  asking  almost  any  favor  he 
could  afford,  Mr.  Beecher  would  have  conferred  it  in- 
stantly. Nor  is  there  a  man  living  to  whom  I  think 
Mr.  Beecher  would  not  be  delighted  to  be  reconciled, 
no  matter  what  wrong  he  may  have  perpetrated,  or  what 


WHAT   WOULD   YOU   HAVE  ME   TO   DO?  233 

help  lie  may  have  withheld,  when  help  was  most  need- 
ed. It  would  be  "  a  joy  day  "  beyond  all  that  he  has 
ever  experienced,  if  the  best  and  the  worst  of  all  those 
whom  he  thought  had  even  enmity  toward  him  would 
simply  say,  "Let  bygones  be  bygones."  As  David 
said  in  haste,  "  All  men  are  liars,"  so  under  stress  of 
the  moment,  in  haste,  Mr.  Beecher  has  said  some  sharp 
things.  This  he  would  admit,  but  he  would  not 
ask,  nor  suffer  others  to  make  admissions  to  him. 


WHAT   WOULD   YOU   HAVE   ME   TO   DO? 

At  a  Friday  evening  meeting  Mr.  Beecher  had  been 
dwelling  on  the  subject  of  kindness  and  gentleness  on 
the  part  of  Christians  in  their  intercourse  with  men, 
and  how  essential  it  was  to  cherish  this  spirit  toward 
men  who  were  angry  and  abusive.  In  the  course  of  his 
remarks  he  alluded  to  some  cases  coming  under  his 
own  observation  where  very  violent  and  bad  men  had 
been  won  from  hatred  and  opposition  to  the  warmest 
friendship  and  devotion,  by  the  gentle  self-possession 
and  kindness  of  those  against  whom  they  had  been 
angered.  Every  one  at  all  familiar  with  Plymouth 
Church  knows  that  Mr.  Beecher,  in  his  own  social 
meetings,  permits  criticisms  and  questions  on  the  sub- 
jects presented.  On  the  evening  alluded  to,  one  of  the 
brethren  of  the  church,  who  has  a  mind  of  his  own 
and  freely  expresses  it,  arose  when  Mr.  Beecher  con- 
cluded and  asked,  "  What  would  you  do  in  such  a 
case  as  this  1  There  is  a  poor  widow  living  in  Brook- 
lyn who  has  a  boy  she  cannot  control ;  he  won't  go  to 
school,   is   constantly  playing  truant,   living  on  the 


234  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

streets,  and  associating  with  others  as  bad  or  worse 
than  himself.  I  met  the  boy  in  the  street  the  other 
day,  and  took  hold  of  him  to  take  him  to  his  mother, 
who  is  greatly  troubled  about  him,  and  wanted  him 
placed  in  the  Truant  Home.  The  little  vagabond 
raised  a  great  cry  and  gathered  a  crowd  around.  A 
loafer  interposed  to  release  the  boy,  wanting  to  know 
what  I  was  going  to  do  with  him.  As  he  attempted  to 
take  the  boy  from  me,  I  told  him,  if  he  laid  hands  on 
either  of  us  I  would  smite  him  between  his  two  eyes. 
I  ask  again,  what  are  you  going  to  do  in  such  a  case  V 
The  pastor  responded,  "  What  do  you  want  me  to 
do  ?  Shall  I  do  as  a  minister  did  who  was  preaching 
at  a  camp-meeting  in  the  West  ?  During  his  sermon  a 
fellow  in  the  audience  disturbed  the  meeting  and  re- 
fused to  desist,  paying  no  attention  to  the  efforts  made 
to  quiet  him  ;  the  minister  stopped  preaching,  went 
down  to  the  disturber,  gave  him  a  good  sound  thrash- 
ing, went  back  to  the  stand  and  finished  his  sermon," 


THE   DYING   CALIFOENIAN. 

A  year  or  two  after  entering  the  service  of  Plymouth 
Church,  at  the  close  of  a  Sabbath  morning  service  in 
May,  a  tall,  fleshy  gentleman  spoke  to  Mr.  Beecher, 
who  called  me  to  him,  and  handed  me  the  man's  ad- 
dress, saying  that  his  wife  was  ill  and  he  wanted  some 
one  to  visit  her.  I  told  him  I  would  call  and  see  her. 
Owing  to  a  pressure  from  other  engagements,  and  as 
nothing  had  been  said  about  the  lady  being  particu- 
larly sick,  I  did  not  call  till  Tuesday  at  two  o'  clock. 

When  calling,  I  sent  up  my  name,  and  the  nurse 


THE   DYING   CALIFORNIAN.  235 

came  down  and  said  that  the  lady  Avas  so  feeble  she 
conld  see  visitors  only  in  the  morning.  Accordingly 
I  called  about  9^  o'clock  the  following  morning. 
I  was  shown  into  the  sick-chamber,  where  I  found  a 
woman  sitting  up  supported  by  j)illows,  in  her  bed, 
with  a  Plymouth  hymn-book  in  her  hand.  She  was  a 
mere  shadow,  as  nearly  a  skeleton  as  any  person  I  had 
ever  seen.  Her  voice  was  so  weak  that  she  could  only 
speak  in  a  low  whisper.  As  her  throat  was  completely 
ulcerated,  speaking  was  very  painful,  and  swallowing 
almost  impossible.  She  expressed  great  gladness  at 
my  coming,  and  with  intense  animation  made  the  fol- 
lowing narration.  I  use  her  own  language  as  nearly 
as  I  can  remember  it. 

"  I  am  a  member  of  the  Mount  Yernon  Church,  Bos- 
ton. Seven  or  eight  years  ago  we  were  living  in 
Brooklyn,  and  we  went  to  hear  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
preach.  My  husband  was  taken  ill ;  his  physicians 
said  he  had  consumption,  and  told  us  that  if  we  wished 
to  save  his  life  we  must  go  to  California.  We  made 
our  preparations  and  went,  and  you  see  the  result :  he 
weighs  two  hundred  pounds,  is  well  and  vigorous,  and 
I  am  a  skeleton.  He  improved  at  once  on  reaching 
California,  but  after  a  few  years  I  began  to  run  down, 
and  this  continued  until  my  physician  came  in  one 
evening  and  said,  '  You  will  not  live  till  morning.'  I 
answered  him,  '  You  could  not  have  brought  me  better 
news.'  But  I  did  live  until  morning,  and  after  several 
days  I  told  my  husband  I  would  not  die  in  California, 
I  must  go  back  to  Brooklyn  and  hear  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  again  before  I  died.  My  husband  settled  up 
his  business  and  we  came  back,  and  here  I  am." 


236  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

It  would  be  difficult  for  me  to  describe  the  effect  of 
this  story  upon  me.  Here  was  a  woman  who  would 
not  die  in  California,  would  hear  the  Plymouth  pastor 
before  she  died,  had  come  all  the  long,  long  way  in  the 
fulfilment  of  her  desire,  and  here  was  I  thrust  in  to  fill 
the  place  of  the  only  one  on  earth  she  cared  to  hear. 
I  had  to  say  something,  and  it  was,  "  I  am  sorry  you 
have  so  poor  an  apology  for  the  one  you  came  so  far 
to  see,  but  Mr.  Beecher  does  no  i)astoral  work,  and  I 
have  come  in  his  stead."  Quickly  she  replied,  "  It 
makes  no  difference  ;  I  am  ever  so  glad  to  see  you,  just 
as  glad  as  if  Mr.  Beecher  had  come."  I  felt  that  she 
saw  that  I  was  embarrassed  by  the  position  in  which  I 
was  placed,  and  her  sympathy  for  me  led  her  to  speak 
words  that  were  quite  as  strong  as  her  real  feeling 
would  permit. 

I  would  have  gladly  left,  but  could  not  get  away. 
Her  animation  and  warmth  were  to  me  surprising.  For 
nearly  two  hours  I  was  held  by  her  questions,  the  re- 
lation of  her  experiences,  of  the  great  kindness  of  the 
Lord  to  her  in  all  her  life,  and  that  now  He  came  so 
near  to  comfort  and  cheer  her  as  she  was  j)assing 
through  the  valley  and  the  shadow  of  death.  She  was 
ready  and  waiting,  yea,  longing  to  have  permission  to 
cross  the  river  to  the  promised  land.  She  was  antici- 
pating the  hour  with  a  perfect  enthusiasm  of  delight. 
Her  vision  was  from  the  standpoint  of  the  immortal 
Watts  : 

"Sweet  fields  beyond  the  swelling  flood 
Stand  dressed  in  living  green." 

We  sang,  "  My  Faith  looks  up  to  Thee,"  "  Eock  of 
Ages,"  and  other  hymns.     1  say  we  sang,  for  in  her 


THE    DYING   CALIFORNIAN.  237 

whispered  tones  she  joined,  and  now  and  then  a  full 
round  note  would  sound  out  clear  and  distinct  as  that 
of  a  bird.  After  reading  the  twenty-third  Psalm  and 
the  last  talk  of  Jesus  with  his  disciples,  and  prayer,  I 
rose  to  leave,  and  asked  her  if  she  would  like  to  have 
the  Lord's  Supper  administered  to  her,  that  I  fre- 
quently did  that  service  for  the  sick.  She  was  greatly 
delighted  at  the  suggestion  ;  I  went  at  once  and  told 
Mr.  Beecher  her  story,  and  that  I  wanted  him  to  go 
himself  and  administer  the  communion  to  her.  He 
readily  consented  to  go  on  the  following  Saturday 
morning  at  nine  o'clock.  When  we  went  in  that 
morning  to  the  house  of  the  sick  woman,  we  were 
escorted  to  an  upper  room,  where  we  found  her  sitting 
in  an  invalid's  chair,  with  her  husband  and  three  or 
four  friends  about  her.  I  Avas  struck,  on  entering  the 
room,  with  Mr.  Beecher' s  ai)pearance.  He  was  not  at 
all  at  ease  or  at  home,  spoke  in  a  mere  whisper,  and 
through  the  whole  service  it  was  quite  apparent  that 
he  was  entirely  dissatisfied  with  himself  or  the  way 
in  which  he  was  doing  his  work.  Had  it  been  some 
men,  I  might  have  said,  they  are  afraid  they  will 
make  some  mistake,  or  that  they  had  not  done  this 
thing  before,  and  they  did  not  know  how  to  perfoi'm 
the  service  smoothly.  As  it  was,  Mr.  Beecher  came 
downstaks  with  a  dissatisfied  and  dejected  manner, 
and  as  he  stej)ped  on  the  sidewalk,  with  a  sudden  jerk 
of  the  arms  downward,  he  exclaimed,  "  There,  if  I  do 
pastoral  work  it  spoils  me  for  preaching,  and  if  I 
preach  it  spoils  me  for  pastoral  work ;  but  if  I  should 
give  up  preaching  altogether,  and  do  nothing  but  pas- 
toral work,  I  could  cut  a  big  swathe,  don't  you  think 
15 


238  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

I  could  V     I  only  smiled  and  said,  "  I  slionld  like  to 
see  you  try  it." 


LAST    PRAYEE-MEETING    OF   THE  YEAR. 

The  last  Friday  evening  of  the  year  1866,  the  meet- 
ing, at  the  suggestion  of  the  pastor,  was  quite  different 
In  character  from  the  usual  prayer-meeting  service. 
Almost  invariably  v^hen  conducted  by  the  pastor  the 
first  exercise  is  singing,  followed  by  a  pi-ayer,  singing 
again,  another  prayer,  followed  by  singing,  and  then 
the  pastor' s  address,  varying  in  length  from  fifteen  to 
thirty  minutes.  Ordinarily  these  services  absorb  most 
of  the  hour  which  is  the  time  allotted  for  the  meeting. 
When  Mr.  Beecher  has  closed  his  remarks,  he  general- 
ly asks  if  any  one  wishes  to  put  to  him  any  question. 
Many  times  the  invitation  is  accepted,  but  often  no  one 
improves  the  opportunity,  aird  the  meeting  is  closed  by 
singing  and  the  benediction.  This  is  the  only  prayer- 
meeting  of  the  church. 

At  the  meeting  alluded  to,  after  the  customary  open- 
ing, the  pastor  said,  "As  it  is  the  last  meeting  of  the 
year,  it  seems  an  appropriate  thing  to  look  back  upon 
the  year  and  to  speak  to  each  other  of  its  experi- 
ences." There  was  a  great  deal  of  freedom  among  the 
brethren,  and  a  large  number  gave  testimonies,  very 
varied  in  kind,  and  comprehending  the  whole  space 
between  great  prosperity  and  sore  adversity.  Great 
afflictions  accompanied  with  much  suffering  had  been 
the  lot  of  some,  while  others  had  passed  through  the 
year  unscathed.  In  spiritual  things  some  had  been 
walking  in  high  places,  others  in  the  valleys.     There 


LAST   PRAYER-MEETING   OF   THE   YEAR.  239 

were  many  more  apparently  desiring  to  speak  than 
there  was  time  to  hear,  and  shortly  before  the  usual 
time  for  closing  the  meeting  the  jmstor  said,  "Tm 
speaking  of  my  own  experience  ;  it  seems  proper  that 
I  should  speak  of  what  has  come  out  of  my  own  rela- 
tions and  connections  as  your  pastor.  Some  say  to 
me,  '  I  should  think  it  would  make  you  proud  to  have 
such  throngs  come  to  hear  you  year  after  year.'  I 
don't  need  that  to  make  me  proud. 

"  Others  say,  '  I  should  think  you  would  feel  it  a  ter- 
rible responsibility  to  have  such  great  congregations  to 
preach  to,  when  you  remember  what  consequences 
are  involved.'  I  don't  feel  any  responsibility.  I  go 
into  the  pulpit  and  look  round  upon  that  great  congre- 
gation, and  my  heart  is  filled  with  unutterable  yearn- 
ings for  them  ;  often  I  lose  all  desire  to  preach,  and  if 
I  should  consult  my  own  feeliags  would  devote  the 
whole  service  to  prayer.  But  as  to  responsibility,  as  I 
have  already  said,  I  feel  none.  God  knows  I  do  the 
very  best  I  can  ;  I  put  the  best  I  know  in  my  sermons, 
and  leave  the  results  with  the  Lord,  and  am  not 
troubled  in  regard  to  that."  On  a  similar  occasion, 
when  several  had  spoken  of  the  year  as  one  of  growth 
both  in  temporal  and  spuitual  things,  the  pastor  in- 
terposed and  said,  "  This  will  do  for  one  side  ;  now  let 
us  have  the  other.  Let  some  one  who  has  had  a  hard 
time  with  others  and  especially  with  Mmself — some 
of  you  that  have  been  proud,  arrogant,  self-willed, 
speak."  One  of  the  brethren  answered  playfully, 
*'  Suppose  you  speak  to  that." 

Brethren  often  take  such  liberties  with  Mr.  Beecher, 
and  sometimes  criticise  what  he  may  say  or  do.     He 


240  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

may  warmly  advocate  a  course  which  the  church  may 
condemn,  and  when  he  has  been  defeated,  those  who 
have  been  victorious  cannot  be  more  pleased  than  the 
pastor  himself.  But  his  judgment  and  good  sense  are 
so  admirable  that  he  rarely  advocates  a  measure  that 
does  not  gain  the  approval  of  the  church. 

There  are  no  wranglings,  no  factions,  and  no  divis- 
ions. Opinions  may  vary,  but  the  result  is  harmony.  I 
know  from  personal  observation  that  more  difficulties 
and  divisions  have  occurred  in  some  little  church  in  a 
single  year  than  have  taken  place  in  Plymouth 
Church  since  its  formation. 

I  have  seen  Mr.  Beecher  greatly  enjoy  a  discussion 
upon  some  debated  question  in  his  church,  and 
become  almost  hilarious,  saying,  "  Well,  that  is  the 
fruit  of  my  teaching.  I  have  ever  enjoined  you  to  be 
independent  and  think  for  yourselves,  and  not  allow 
me  or  any  one  else  to  lead  you  against  your  own  intel- 
ligent convictions."  To  have  his  church,  therefore, 
act  independently,  is  a  source  of  pride  and  gratification 
to  him,  rather  than  one  of  irritability  and  dissatisfac- 
tion. But  harmony  and  unanimity  of  action  have 
always  characterized  the  great  body  of  communicants. 

During  the  great  trouble  through  which  the  church 
was  called  to  pass  a  few  years  since,  its  great  member- 
ship of  more  than  two  thousand  persons,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  a  comparatively  very  small  number,  were 
banded  together  with  a  oneness  and  sympathetic  affec- 
tion that  was  probably  never  excelled  if  equalled. 

Such  manifestations  of  loyal  attachment  to  a  pastor, 
evincing  themselves  in  so  many  conceivable  ways 
and  in  such  trying  circumstances,  are  certainly  without 


UNOBTRUSIVE   LOVE   AND   SYMPATHY.  241 

a  parallel  in  tlie  history  of  chnrclies,  and  have  elicited 
eulogy  and  praise  even  from  those  who  were  most  in- 
imical to  Mr.  Beecher  and  the  church. 

Dreadful  as  was  the  ordeal  through  which  Mr. 
Beecher  was  dragged,  and  fearful  as  his  sufferings 
must  have  been  at  times,  the  sufferings  of  his  people 
were  little  less  than  agony.  Strong  men  with  falter- 
ing voice  and  falling  tears  attested  the  sympathy  and 
intense  love  of  this  people  for  their  pastor  and  how 
completely  they  made  his  trouble  their  own.  His 
support,  serenity  and  cheerfulness,  his  ability  to 
preach  as  he  did  every  Sabbath  during  those  dark, 
dark  months,  showing  almost  no  appearance  of  wear 
or  suffering,  was,  and  is  still,  an  unsolved  wonder  to 
those  who  did  not  see  the  position  occupied  by  his 
church.  Its  members  suffered  almost  more  than  the 
pastor.  Their  prayers  and  sympathies  buoyed  him 
up,  rendering  him  almost  unconscious  of  the  malignant 
billows  that  were  dashing  against  him.  During  those 
dreadful  days  no  one  ever  intruded  upon  Mr, 
Beecher  ;  the  love  and  sympathy  of  his  people  were 
not  kept  alive  by  personal  intercourse  with  him,  and 
not  one  in  a  hundred  of  his  people  had  a  moment's 
conversation  with  him  then  or  since  about  these  fear- 
ful troubles. 

There  was  a  beautiful  consideration,  in  this  regard, 
shown  to  Mr,  Beecher  which  neither  he  nor  others  can 
ever  forget.  Nothing  I  have  ever  experienced,  seen, 
or  read  has  afforded  me  such  a  view  of  devotion  and 
affectionate  attachment,  of  noble,  unselfish  love,  and  of 
the  advantages  derived  from  the  instructions  of  a  re- 
ligious teacher.     No  bondage  like  spiritual  bondage. 


242  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

No  suffering  like  that  of  the  soul  longing  and  seeking 
for  light,  and  all  the  time  falling  into  deeper  dark- 
ness, hearing  the  cry,  "  Lo  here  and  lo  there,"  until, 
weary  of  following,  it  lies  down  in  despair,  Mr. 
Beecher  has  been  favored  so  to  minister  to  vast  multi- 
tudes, that  they  have  found  rest  and  peace,  and  in  the 
soil  of  their  hearts  strong  and  undying  affection  have 
sprung  up,  and  so  matured  toward  their  spiritual 
teacher  that  they  have  yielded  the  beautiful  and  pre- 
cious fruits  we  have  just  detailed. 


BOEDER   RUFFIAN. 

Immediately  after  the  morning  service  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1877,  almost  before  the  benediction  was  con- 
cluded, a  tall,  gaunt  man  started  from  the  centre  of  the 
church  in  great  haste  for  the  platform.  He  was  ap- 
parently seventy  years  old,  dressed  in  coarse,  shaggy 
garments,  and  was  just  ready  to  rush  up  to  Mr. 
Beecher  when  I  said,  "  My  friend,  wait  a  moment,  Mr. 
Beecher  will  be  down  directly,  and  then  you  can  speak 
to  him."  He  answered,  "  I  am  a  Methodist  preacher 
from  Texas  ;  I  was  a  border  ruffian,  and  I'  11  bet  a  nickel 
if  Mr.  Beecher  had  been  there  he'  d  a  been  one  too.  I 
have  shuck  hands  with  Henry  Clay,  John  Quincy 
Adams,  Tom  Benton,  Dan  Webster,  John  C.  Calhoun, 
and  now  I  want  to  shuck  hands  with  Henry  Ward 
Beecher." 

When  Mr.  Beecher  came  down,  the  Texan  grasped 
his  hand,  shook  it  with  great  heartiness,  said  he  was  a 
border  ruffian  from  Texas,  offered  to  bet  a  nickel 
Mr.  Beecher  would  have  been  one  too  if  he  had  lived 


A  SENSIBLE  WOMAN.  243 

there,  and  repeated  the  names  of  the  celebrities  with 
whom  he  had  shook  hands  ;  all  this  in  a  voice  so  loud 
he  could  have  been  heard  all  over  the  house  had  the 
congregation  been  seated.  As  soon,  however,  as  he  had 
told  his  story  he  started  off  almost  on  a  run,  and  this 
was  the  last  seen  of  the  old  Texan  fighter. 


A  SENSIBLE  WOMAN. 

Years  since  a  most  estimable  Christian  woman,  a 
member  of  Plymouth  Church,  was  a  dreadful  sufferer 
from  inflammatory  rheumatism,  and  for  twelve  years 
had  been  almost  entirely  helpless.  In  all  her  suffer- 
ings there  had  been  the  most  quiet  patience,  fortitude, 
and  self-possession.  It  was  beautiful  to  see  her 
hearty  acce]3tance  of  all  her  trials  as  the  ministration 
of  unerring  love.  She  was  exceedingly  quiet  and  re- 
tiring, but  manifestly  peaceful  and  happy.  There  was 
always  an  apparent  restfulness.  She  never  seemed 
tossed  about,  but  waiting  for  permission  to  enter  the 
house  of  many  mansions.  She  had  been  helped  greatly 
through  her  long  years  of  suffering  by  the  teachings 
of  Mr.  Beecher,  and  often  spoke  of  his  sermons  as 
affording  her  unspeakable  comfort.  One  day  entering 
her  room  I  found  her  with  a  volume  of  Plymouth 
Pulpit  lying  open  on  the  table  beside  which  she  was 
sitting.  I  said,  "  Since  you  cannot  enjoy  the  visit  of 
the  original,  I  am  glad  you  have  so  good  a  substitute." 
^'  Do  you  know,"  she  replied,  "  I  think  the  substitute 
is  worth  more  than  the  original;  I  don't  think  it 
would  be  easy  for  me  to  converse  with  him,  but  I 
ain't  afraid  of  his  sermons,  and  can  enjoy  them  very 


244  HENRY   WARD   BEECIIER. 

much  when  I  am  here  alone,  as  I  am  so  much  of  the 
time."  I  spoke  of  this  good  woman  at  the  weekly- 
meeting,  not  mentioning  her  name,  and  told  what  she 
had  said  respecting  the  pastor,  and  her  preference  for 
his  sermons  to  his  visits.  He  interrupted  me,  saying 
quickly  and  emphatically,  "  Sensible  woman,  sensible 
woman."  

WOMEN   SPEAKING   IN   MEETING. 

Mr.  Beecher  has  encouraged,  or  at  least  has  never 
prevented  females  from  sj^eaking  in  the  meetings  in 
Plymouth  Church.  He  may  not  have  urged  it  upon 
them  as  a  duty  or  privilege,  but  he  has  rej)eatedly 
urged  those  who  have  gifts,  that  would  render  them  ac- 
ceptable, to  sx)eak.  It  is  generally  understood  that  all 
persons  who  have  anything  to  say,  as  Mr.  Beecher 
phrases  it,  are  free  to  say  it,  whether  they  belong  to  the 
congregation  or  not.  In  this  respect  the  women  are 
placed  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  men.  The  liberty 
of  speech  has  not  been  harmful,  and  never  annoying, 
except  in  the  following  instance. 

Some  years  since  a  lady,  a  stranger  to  the  church, 
who  seemed  to  consider  herself  competent  to  edify 
others,  began  to  speak  frequently,  at  the  weekly 
prayer-meetings,  and  her  speech  was  so  indistinct  as 
to  render  it  difficult  for  more  than  half  the  audience 
to  hear  her.  Her  efforts  continued  with  much  fre- 
quency through  several  months.  Finally  she  con- 
cluded to  devote  herself  to  the  lecture  platform,  and 
advertised  herself  as  "  the  eloquent  lady  speaker  at 
the  prayer-meeting  of  Plymouth  Church."  Before 
she  had  entered  upon  her  labors  she  arose  one  evening 


THE  METHODIST   SISTER.  245 

in  the  lecture-room  after  the  usual  time  to  close  the 
service  and  the  pastor  requested  her  to  be  brief.  Her 
address  was  so  characteristic  and  prolonged  that  the 
people  became  restless,  and  when  she  closed  Mr. 
Beecher  said  with  well-understood  accent  and  empha- 
sis, "Nevertheless  I  am  in  favor  of  women's 
speaking  in  meeting."  The  whereabouts  of  our  long- 
time friend  has  been  unknown  to  us  since  that  evening. 
From  time  to  time  other  women  have  spoken  in  our 
meetings,  some  of  them  returned  missionaries  and 
some  Quakeresses,  all  of  whom  have  generally  inter- 
ested and  edified  the  i)eople. 


THE  METHODIST   SISTER. 

One  day  in  conversation  with  Mr.  Beecher  about  the 
change  that  had  taken  place  in  the  views  and  feelings 
of  close  communionists,  in  regard  to  permitting  others 
to  sit  with  them  at  the  Lord' s  table,  I  related  the  fol- 
lovdng  incident  in  the  life  of  Washington,  told  me  by 
my  mother. 

The  winter  his  army  was  encamped  at  Morristown, 
New  Jersey,  General  Washington  was  a  regular  attend- 
ant on  the  Sabbath  service  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
the  only  church  then  in  the  town  ;  during  the  week  pre- 
ceding the  communion  Sabbath,  General  Washington 
called  at  the  i^arsonage  and  inquired  of  the  minister, 
"Doctor,  do  you  permit  Episcopalians  to  come  to 
your  communion  table?"  The  good  man  replied, 
"  General  Washington,  it  is  the  Lord's  table  and  all 
his  children  are  welcome  to  it." 

Mr.  Beecher  remarked  that  the  most  rigid  were  far 


246  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

less  SO  tlian  formerly,  and  he  did  not  believe  that 
there  were  many  tables  so  close  now  that  General 
Washington  or  any  other  good  man  would  be  in  dan- 
ger of  being  driven  from  them.  As  illustration  of  his 
opinion  he  told  the  following  : 

In  a  town  a  very  interesting  revival  occurred  in  the 
Baptist  Church,  while  there  was  little  or  no  interest  in 
the  Methodist  Church  in  the  same  place.  In  this 
church  there  was  a  very  devout,  warm-hearted  old 
lady,  who  was  attracted  to  the  special  services  in  the 
Baptist  Church,  where  her  son  also  attended,  and  be- 
came a  convert,  to  the  great  joy  of  the  old  saint,  who 
was  accorded  full  liberty  in  expressing  her  enthusi- 
asm in  the  Baptist  meetings.  Communion  season  was 
approaching,  and  the  old  woman' s  boy  felt  he  ought  to 
be  immersed  and  become  a  member  of  that  church 
where  he  had  found  the  Saviour.  To  this  the  old  lady 
did  not  object,  but  when  communion  Sabbath  came  she 
was  on  hand  with  her  son,  and  one  of  the  deacons 
seeing  her  among  the  communicants,  went  to  the  min- 
ister and  said  to  him,  "  That  old  Methodist  is  sitting 
down  there  and  means  to  commune  with  us."  "  Does 
she  ?"  he  inquired  with  great  seriousness  of  manner. 
"  What  shall  I  do  ?"  inquired  the  deacon.  "  There  is 
my  hickory  stick  down  yonder,  get  it  and  kill  her." 
The  old  woman  was  not  killed,  but  partook  of  the  sup- 
per with  the  Baptists  unmolested. 


APPLICANTS   FOR   HELP. 


Mr.  Beecher  has  acquired  such  notoriety  for  liber- 
ality and  sympathy,    that  he  has  been  overrun   for 


CURIOUS  BEGGARS.  247 

years  with  all  sorts  of  requests  for  every  kind  of  as- 
sistance. In  liis  liouse,  in  the  street,  at  the  close  of 
services  in  the  church,  he  has  been  beset  with  those 
charity-seekers.  When  called  to  my  present  field  of 
labor,  one  thing  only  did  Mr.  Beecher  request,  "  that 
I  should  be  as  a  Idnd  of  lightning-rod  to  relieve  him 
from  the  care  of  those  applicants."  He  knew  he  had 
often  been  imposed  upon,  and  as  I  had  had  some  experi- 
ence in  the  distribution  of  charity  he  desired  to  have 
all  cases  referred  to  me,  as  he  could  not  say  "  No," 
even  to  a  "  dead  beat." 

At  the  close  of  a  Sunday  evening  service,  just  after 
the  war,  I  saw  a  man  with  an  amiy  coat  on,  buttoned 
up  to  the  throat,  waiting  to  speak  to  Mr,  Beecher,  who 
immediately  referred  him  to  me.  I  asked  him  what  he 
desu-ed  of  the  pastor.  "  I  want  a  clean  shirt. "  "  Why 
do  you  come  to  Mr.  Beecher  for  a  clean  shirt  ?"  "I 
have  read  his  articles  and  other  things  that  have  been 
written  about  him,  and  I  thought  he  was  a  kind  man 
and  would  grant  me  such  a  favor."  "  Where  do  you 
belong  and  what  have  you  done  for  a  support  'f  "I 
belong  to  Alexandria  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and 
have  been  a  fisherman  on  the  Potomac."  "Yes,  I 
have  a  family  and  had  misunderstandings  ;  I  did  not 
think  I  was  treated  properly  and  came  away."  "  Well, 
my  advice  to  you  is,  to  go  back  quicker  than  you 
came  away."  "  No,  sir,  I  want  to  let  them  know  that 
I  can  take  care  of  myself.  I  saw  they  wanted  men  to 
work  in  the  brickyard  up  at  Flushing,  and  I  thought 
if  Mr.  Beecher  would  give  me  a  clean  shirt,  I  would 
walk  up  there  and  go  in  the  bay  and  take  a  bath,  put 
on  the  clean  shirt,  and  go  to  the  brickyard  and  apply 


248  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

for  work."     Lodging,     breakfast,  and    a    clean   sMrt 
were  provided  for  him,  and  lie  went  on  his  way. 

Directly  in  front  of  the  platform  in  one  of  the  free 
seats  on  a  pleasant  spring  morning  sat  an  old  gentle- 
man of  perhaps  sixty,  whose  tears  fell  frequently  dur- 
ing the  sermon,  and  an  occasional  ' '  Amen' '  empha- 
sized the  old  man's  apjDroval  of  the  sermon.  The 
moment  the  benediction  was  pronounced  he  stepped  to 
the  platform  and  handed  a  book  to  the  pastor,  who, 
as  he  came  down,  handed  it  to  me,  wishing  me  to  tell 
him  what  to  do.  Opening  the  book  I  found  it  con- 
tained contributions  for  the  owner's  benefit.  I  asked 
him  what  he  was  obtaining  these  subscriptions  for. 
"For  myself."  "Where  do  you  belong?"  "Fred- 
ericksburg, Virginia."  "  Why  should  you  be  here 
begging  in  this  way?"  "Because  I  am  needy." 
' '  You  are  not  sick,  why  don' t  you  go  to  work  and 
earn  a  support  for  yourself,  or  if  you  are  going  to  beg 
for  a  living,  why  do  you  not  stay  at  home  and  ask 
help  of  them  tliat  know  you,  instead  of  coming  here 
among  strangers  V '  To  all  of  which  I  could  obtain  no 
other  statement  tlian  that  he  had  obtained  from  those 
who  knew  liim  all  they  were  willing  to  give.  His  book 
had  been  in  use  a  long  time,  and  the  aggregate  contri- 
butions were  very  considerable,  and  though  beginning 
at  Fredericksburg,  they  had  been  added  to  at  various 
places  all  the  way  from  there  to  Brooklyn.  I  advised 
the  pastor  to  give  him  fifty  cents.  "  Oh,  give  him  five 
dollars,"  was  the  answer.  When  the  old  man  got  his 
five  dollars,  he  said,  "Now  I  want  to  see  Brother 
Beecher  and  have  a  good  talk  with  him,"  but  he  was 
told  that  that  was  out  of  the  question. 


OTHER  APPLICANTS  FOR  HELP.  249 

During  the  ''  Centennial,"  a  woman  from  Boston, 
apparently  thirty  to  thirty-five  years  of  age,  called 
upon  me  to  inquii'e  where  Mr.  Beecher  resided,  saying 
she  was  an  orphan  from  Boston,  that  she  had  been  to 
Philadelphia  and  wanted  to  remain  over  Sunday  to 
hear  Mr.  Beecher  jDreach,  and  thought,  as  she  was  an 
orphan,  she  could  be  entertained  at  his  house.  Of 
course  she  was  educated,  but  not  very  modern  in  her 
general  appearance,  especially  in  regard  to  her  dress. 

Many  come  to  entreat  a  collection  in  the  church  or 
lecture-room  for  their  benefit.  From  Pennsylvania 
and  Western  States  some  urgent  appeals  have  come 
by  letter,  and  some  women  have  journeyed  more  than 
a  thousand  miles  to  secure  collections  to  save  home- 
steads from  being  lost  under  foreclosure  of  mortgages. 

In  a  single  week  on  one  occasion,  two  mothers 
came,  and  were  seemingly  disappointed  that  their  re- 
quests did  not  meet  with  a  favorable  answer.  One, 
the  daughter  of  a  clergyman,  was  evidently  educated 
and  refined.  Her  husband  had  been  unfortunate,  and 
though  once  in  very  comfortable,  if  not  affluent  cir- 
cumstances, they  were  now  in  absolute  want,  and 
threatened  to  be  turned  from  their  rooms  iipon  the 
street  because  they  could  not  pay  their  rent.  They 
had  two  daughters  who  had  been  delicately  brought 
up  and  could  not  resort  to  ordinary  service  for  a  sup- 
port. This  was  the  story  of  this  wife  and  mother,  and 
in  it  all  it  was  quite  apparent  that  a  foolish  j)ride  had 
kept  them  from  economies  and  industries  that  would 
have  kept  them  back  from  the  extreme  condition  to 
which  they  were  now  reduced,  but  she  had  none,  and 
the  family  had  none  of  that  decent  pride  which  would 


250  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

prevent  them  going  to  entire  strangers  entreating  a 
public  collection.  Slie  seemed  linrt  and  disappointed 
when  I  told  her  that  the  church  would  not  take  such 
collections,  and  that  if  such  were  attempted  there 
would  be  no  end  of  applications  from  persons  as  needy 
and  deserving  as  herself. 

A  widow  with  a  little  girl  twelve  years  old  called  for 
help,  saying  by  way  of  precedent  that  "  Mr.  Beecher 
had  taken  a  collection  for  the  widow  of  a  policeman 
who  was  murdered,"  and  she  too  was  in  need  of  help. 
I  told  her  that  Mr.  Beecher  did  not  take  a  collection, 
but  that  he  had  given  a  lecture  in  the  Academy  of 
Music  for  a  case  which  was  very  different  from  hers. 
The  man  was  murdered  while  in  the  discharge  of  his 
duty  as  an  officer,  and  his  widow  was  left  with  several 
young  children. 

As  she  was  in  good  health,  I  advised  her  to  go  to 
work  in  some  family  with  her  child  or  else  get  a  place 
for  her  child  in  some  family  that  would  take  good 
care  of  her,  and  go  to  work  herself,  earn  what  she 
could,  placing  in  bank  what  she  could  spare,  and  thus 
accumulate  something  against  the  day  of  sickness  and 
want.     The  advice  was  not  much  relished. 

As  I  entered  the  pastor's  library  one  morning,  a  man 
perhaps  sixty  passed  out,  while  the  pastor  was  hold- 
ing a  pen  in  his  mouth  and  was  just  putting  his 
check-book  in  his  safe.  I  said,  "  I  wish  I  had  the  key 
of  that  safe."  "What  would  you  do  if  you  had  f 
"  I  would  keep  you  from  drawing  checks  for  those 
shysters  that  are  constantly  sponging  upon  you." 
"  Oh,"  he  replied,  "  I  only  gave  him  twenty-five  dol- 
lars.   It's  Captain  B ,  he  is  an  old  English  shipmas- 


STRIKING   ADAPTATION.  251 

ter,  has  lost  his  shijo,  and  is  going  to  Charleston  to  get 
a  new  ship."  I  was  amiably  rebuked  for  being  sus- 
picious of  siicTi  a  man.  Possibly  six  months  after 
this,  I  was  told  a  gentleman  was  waiting  to  see  me, 
and  entering  the  room  I  at  once  recognized  the 
wrecked  English  sea  captain.  He  arose  and  intro- 
duced himself  as  Captain  B ,  had  been  sick  and 

was  on  his  way  to  Philadelphia  to  his  ship,  out  of 
funds,  and  wanted  to  get  sufficient  to  pay  his  way  to 
Philadelphia.  "  I  called  round  to  see  my  friend,  Ward 
Beecher  ;  he  helped  me  once,  but  is  not  at  home,  and  I 
was  referred  to  you."  I  told  him  I  knew  that  he  had 
received  help  from  Mr,  Beecher,  and  that  he  ought  not 
to  have  gone  to  him.  I  could  not  help  him,  but  if  he 
could  show  that  it  was  important  for  him  to  get  to 
Philadelphia,  if  he  would  go  to  Mr.  George  Kellogg, 
who  Avas  the  superintendent  of  the  out-door  poor  in 
I^ew  York,  he  would  give  him  a  pass  to  Philadelphia. 
Six  years  have  gone  since  these  applications,  and  Cap- 
tain B has  not  appeared  to  reproduce  his  need  of 

means  to  obtain  a  "new  ship,"  or  a  "pass"  to  any 
city. 


UNIVEESAL   ADAPTATION. 

A  striking  feature  of  Mr.  Beecher' s  sermons,  his 
lecture-room  talks,  and  especially  his  prayers,  is  their 
adaptation  to  so  many  and  such  a  variety  of  human  ex- 
perience and  want.  This  is  not  only  true  of  his  ser- 
vices as  a  whole,  but  in  each  particular  service  the 
needs  and  yearnings  of  every  variety  of  temperament 
and  of  every  condition  in  life  find  relief,  comfort,  light. 


252  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

and  strength.  Nothing  is  more  common  in  visitations 
among  the  peojole  than  to  discover  this  peculiarity  in 
the  results  of  the  teachings  of  Plymouth  pulpit. 
Though  familiar  with  the  intluence  of  many  p>astors — 
good,  true,  and  successful  men  of  God — I  have  never 
known  any  ministry  so  eminent  in  this  particular  as 
that  of  Mr.  Beecher.  While  scarcely  any  pastoral 
work  is  performed  by  him,  yet  his  sermons  manifest 
the  most  intimate  personal  knowledge  of  his  people's 
spiritual  condition  ;  very  frequently  persons  have  said 
to  me,  Mr.  Beecher  must  have  been  informed  of  my 
circumstances,  troubles  and  sorrows,  doubts  and  fears. 
He  could  not  speak  so  exactly  to  my  wants  if  some  one 
had  not  been  talking  to  him  about  me.  The  testi- 
mony of  Mr.  Beecher' s  intimate  knowledge  of  the  inner 
consciousness  of  his  hearers,  does  not  come  alone  or 
chiefly  from  his  own  people,  but  from  men  and  women 
of  all  Christian  sects  over  the  whole  land,  and  also 
from  other  lands  by  those  who  have  heard  Mr.  Beecher 
or  read  his  utterances  in  the  printed  page.  Prom  the 
knowledge  I  have  acquired  b}''  pastoral  visits,  by  in- 
terviews at  my  own  house,  and  by  letters,  I  am  confi- 
dent that  the  teachings  of  Plymouth  pulpit  have  been 
wonderfully  used  by  God  to  comfort  and  bless  a  far 
greater  number  of  persons  and  churches  than  any  one 
has  ever  attempted  to  estimate.  Many  years  since  I 
was  x)ermitted  on  one  occasion  to  read  a  brief  note 
directed  to  Mr.  Beecher  and  dated  at  a  European  me- 
tropolis. I  Avill  attempt  to  recall  its  contents  as  nearly 
as  possible  : 

"  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher — Dear  Sir  :     You  will 
be  surprised  to  receive  from  me  a  letter  dated  from 


AN   ENGLISH   CLERGYMAN'S   LETTER.  253 

this  distant  city.  My  family  liad  preceded  me, 
having  come  to  Eiirox^e  for  the  benefit  of  my  wife's 
health,  who  had  been  ill  a  long  time.  Among  other 
reading  matter  a  large  nnmber  of  your  sermons  was 
brought  over  by  my  family,  and  they  have  been  the 
constant  companions  of  Mrs.  A.  daring  the  day  as 
she  lies  upon  her  couch  ;  they  lie  upon  her  j)illow  while 
she  sleeps,  and  the  reading  of  them  is  renewed  when 
she  awakes.  My  wife  charges  me  to  express  to  you 
her  thanks  for  the  great  comfort  and  help  she  has  de- 
rived from  reading  them.  The  other  members  of  the 
family  unite  in  this  expression.  Permit  me,  as  I  know 
something  about  sermon-making,  to  express  my  won- 
derful admiration  at  the  exuberance  of  your  mind  in 
preparing  sermons." 

The  writer  of  the  letter,  since  deceased,  was  not  of 
the  same  denomination  as  the  pastor  of  Plymouth 
Church,  but  was  one  of  the  most  conservative,  best 
known,  and  widely  jpopular  ministers  in  the  land  ;  Mr. 
Beecher's  senior  both  in  years  and  in  the  ministry,  but 
never  intimate  with  him,  occupying  until  his  death  a 
most  conspicuous  and  honorable  i^osition  at  the  head 
of  one  of  the  chief  seminaries  of  learning  in  our  land, 
and  previously  pastor  for  many  years  of  one  of  the  lar- 
gest and  most  influential  churches  in  the  country.  If 
it  were  consistent,  I  would  gladly  give  his  name,  as  the 
letter  was  most  creditable  to  him  and  admirably  illus- 
trated what  I  have  endeavored  to  show  of  the  wide 
heli^fulness  of  Mr.  Beecher's  instructions. 

So  much  is  put  into  the  sermons  at  Plymouth  Church 
that  any  one  sincerely  and  simply  desiring  to  know  the 
truth  for  the  purpose  of  accepting  and  obeying  it  may 

16 


254  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

find  all  that  is  necessary  to  a  clear  and  intelligent  con- 
ception of  what  is  required. 

But  Mr.  Beecher'  s  prayers,  even  more  than  his  ser- 
mons, have  excited  my  wonder  and  admiration  as  well 
as  the  astonishment  of  others.  The  wonder  is  not  at 
their  great  literary  excellence,  not  at  the  remarkable 
illustrative  genius  always  manifest,  nor  at  the  great 
eloquence  and  force  with  which  the  grandest  themes 
are  brought,  in  form  so  clear  and  simple,  to  the  door 
of  eaph  individual  soul,  for  it  to  appropriate  and  be 
made  to  feel  "  It  is  for  me." 

The  prayers  are  marvellous  in  their  inclusiveness  and 
individuality.  This  is  the  wonderful  feature  in  Mr. 
Beecher' s  prayers.  It  would  seem  while  Mr.  Beecher 
is  praying  that  each  one  in  the  church  was  taken  in 
Ms  arms  and  borne  into  the  presence  of  that  God  ' '  who 
is  waiting  to  be  gracious."  A  conscious  nearness  to  the 
Saviour  is  very  apparent  and  prevalent.  Many  have 
said  that  after  the  prayer  they  did  not  seem  to  need  the 
sermon.  Their  weary,  yearning,  dissatisfied  spirit  had 
obtained  rest,  satisfaction,  and  peace. 

What,  it  may  be  asked,  are  the  elements  of  Mr. 
Beecher' s  ministerial  success  ?  I  think  we  must  go 
outside  of  his  rare  and  wonderful  endowments  to  learn 
what  is  the  root  and  ground  of  his  success  as  a  Chris- 
tian minister. 

I  believe  God,  in  his  wondrous  plan  and  purposes, 
having  seen  that  the  work  Mr.  Beecher  has  been  doing 
was  greatly  needed,  that  the  heavenly  Father  raised 
Mm  up,  inspired  and  fitted  him  for  it.  ''  His  suffi- 
ciency is  of  God."  It  has  been  given  him  of  the  Holy 
Spmt  to  jind  the  hearts  of  men,  weary  and  hungry 


A   BEREAVED   MOTHER.  257 

and  sore,  and  then  to  lead  them  to  the  Great  Phy- 
sician for  refreshment,  rest,  and  healing.  No  man  un- 
taught of  the  Divine  Spuit  could  preach  to  men  and  so 
commune  with  God  as  the  j)reaclier  of  Plymouth 
Church  does.  I  cannot  dispossess  myself  of  the  idea, 
after  all  I  have  seen  of  Mr.  Beecher,  that  he  has  been 
taken  into  such  wonderful  intimacy  and  communion 
with  Christ,  as  to  learn  things  that  are  not  lawful  to 
be  told,  that  he  has  been  drawn  into  earthly  walks  to 
some  Emmaus  where  his  heart  has  burned  within  him, 
as  the  Christ  of  the  disciples  opened  his  eyes  to  behold 
wonderful  things  which  should  make  him  a  workman 
of  whom  the  Master  would  not  be  ashamed. 


THE   WOMAN   WHO  LOST   HER   BABY. 

In  the  early  part  of  my  labors  for  Plymouth  Church, 
I  called  upon  a  family,  of  which  the  wife  and  mother 
was  a  member  of  Mr.  Beecher' s  church.  During  the 
conversation,  this  mother  frequently  alluded  to  the 
great  helpfulness  of  the  pastor' s  sermons  to  her.  To 
illustrate  this  fact,  she  told  me  how  she  was  led  to  go 
to  Plymouth  Church.  "  Eight  years  ago,"  said  she, 
"  I  lost  my  baby,  and  it  was  such  a  loss,  I  was  utterly 
disconsolate,  I  could  only  think  of  my  dead  hahy.  It 
was  a  simple,  unmitigated  grief  from  which  I  found  no 
relief  or  alleviation.  I  could  not  weep,  not  a  tear  could 
I  shed,  and  though  I  sought  counsel  from  those  I 
thought  good  and  wise,  no  one  afforded  me  any  com- 
fort. I  was  educated  as  a  Friend,  and  I  sought  help 
from  them,  but  I  obtained  no  relief,  and  was  in  such 
desj)air  that  my  friends  feared  I  would  become  de- 


258  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

ranged.  I  did  become  rebellious  and  reckless,  and  said 
one  day  to  my  mother  :  '  The  Lord  has  killed  my  baby, 
and  I  dont  love  him.'  'Why,'  said  mother,  'what 
does  this  mean  ? '  and  I  repeated,  '  The  Lord  has  killed, 
my  baby,  and  I  do  not  love  him.'  It  occurred  to  me 
one  day  that  I  might  be  helped  by  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  and  resolved  at  once  to  go  and  see  him.  Re- 
flecting upon  it,  I  thought  it  will  be  of  no  use  to  make 
the  attempt ;  so  many  are  running  to  him  he  will  take 
no  notice  of  me,  so  I  gave  ux)  the  thought  of  seeing  him, 
and  continued  in  my  way  of  despair  and  sorrow,  until 
it  occurred  to  me  I  can  write  to  him  and  tell  him  my 
story  and  ask  him  to  help  me  out  of  my  darkness.  I 
was  so  encouraged  with  this  i)lan  that  I  immediately 
wrote  the  letter,  sealed  and  directed  it ;  then  the  fear 
arose  that  it  would  be  useless  to  send  it,  as  he  was  re- 
ceiving hundreds  of  letters  ;  he  would  not  pay  any  at- 
tention to  mine  further  than  to  open  it  and  throw  it  in 
the  waste  basket ;  and  with  this  feeling  oppressing  me 
I  decided  not  to  send  the  letter  and  sank  down  to  my 
old  despairing  mood.  After  a  time,  it  again  occurred 
to  me  that  I  might  derive  help  from  Mr.  Beecher,  and 
I  determined  that  I  would  go  and  hear  him  preach  the 
next  Sunday  morning,  and  through  the  next  week  made 
all  my  arrangements  with  this  view.  When  the  Sabbath 
came  I  started  at  an  early  hour  for  the  church,  and  on 
the  way,  putting  my  hand  into  the  pocket  of  my  dress, 
it  came  in  contact  with  the  letter  which  I  had  wiitten 
to  him,  and  of  which  I  had  not  thought  for  some  time. 
With  the  letter  in  my  hand  I  entered  the  church, 
walked  up  to  the  pulpit,  laid  the  letter  on  the  book-ta- 
ble, went  down  and  took  a  seat  among  the  congregation. 


A   MOTHER   FINDS   JOY   AND   PEACE.  259 

When  Mr.  Beeclier  entered  I  was  greatly  excited. 
When  he  took  np  my  letter  I  was  expecting  he  would 
simply  glance  at  it,  tear  it  up,  and  throw  it  upon  the 
floor.  But  he  read  it  deliberately,  then  placed  it  in  one  of 
the  books,  and  laid  the  book  open  on  the  reading-desk. 
I  was  in  a  tremor  of  excitement  through  the  opening 
services,  and  during  the  main  prayer  up  to  that  part  in 
which  he  was  presenting  the  personal  needs  of  the  con- 
gregation, when  he  said,  '  0  God,  we  pray  for  the 
poor  woman  who  has  lost  her  baby,'  and  then  offered 
a  tender  and  pitifnl  petition  that  I  might  have  divine 
help.  I  was  deeply  touched  the  moment  he  alluded  to 
my  case,  and  for  the  first  time  in  the  long  months  that 
had  passed  since  my  baby  died,  I  was  able  to  cry.  In- 
deed I  could  not  restrain  my  feelings  ;  tears  ran  down 
my  face  during  the  entire  remaining  service.  I  cannot 
describe  the  instant  relief  I  experienced,  I  was  lifted 
from  the  very  dex)ths  of  despondency  not  only  to  great 
peace,  but  alsolute  ecstasy.  Everything  the  Lord  had 
done  was  right.  I  had  no  further  controversy  vdth 
him,  and  if  he  had  told  me  I  might  have  my  baby,  I 
should  have  told  him  to  keep  it.  My  mouth  was  filled 
with  singing,  and  the  change  in  my  appearance  was  so 
great  since  the  morning,  my  family  felt  that  now  I  was 
surely  deranged.  My  joy  and  peace  continued  through 
the  day.  In  the  evening  I  went  to  church  again,  tears 
of  peace  and  gladness  flowing  continually.  Mr.  Beecher 
in  his  prayer  said  :  '  O  Lord,  we  must  pray  once  more 
for  that  poor  woman  who  has  lost  her  baby,'  and  as  I 
could  not  have  done,  he  carried  my  case  to  the  blessed 
Comforter,  who  had  already  so  graciously  comforted 
me.     In  the  subsequent  days  I  retained  the  same  tran- 


260  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

quillity  and  tlie  most  cheerful  acquiescence  in  the 
Providence  that  took  my  baby  from  my  arms.  And 
this  is  the  way  I  came  to  unite  with  Plymouth  Church. 
Oh,  how  I  wish  Mr.  Beecher  knew  what  he  has  done 
for  me,  and  how  much  he  has  helped  me. "  I  asked, 
^'  Did  you  never  tell  him  the  story  you  have  told 
me?"  No,  she  had  never  mentioned  it.  "Well,  I 
will  see  that  he  does  know  it."  At  the  next  prayer- 
meeting  I  related  the  incidents  very  much  as  I  have 
written  them  here.  Many  eyes  showed  that  hearts 
were  touched.  Mr.  Beecher  made  no  other  response 
than  was  indicated  by  his  face,  but  that  showed  in 
every  lineament  satisfaction,  sympathy,  and  joy. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

PLYMOUTH   CHURCH. 

Plymouth  Chuech  is  Mr.  Beeclier's  best  monu- 
ment.  Its  life  began  thirty -five  years  ago  (June, 
1847),  with  twenty-one  members.  It  now  numbers 
(1882)  two  thousand  four  hundred  and  ninety-one. 
During  these  tliirty-five  years  its  gross  membership  has 
been  nearly  forty-six  hundred,  of  whom  therefore  about 
twenty-one  hundred  have  left  it  by  death,  dismission, 
or  exjDulsion.  Many  of  these  are,  however,  still  in 
affectionate,  personal  relations  with  the  church  of  their 
first  love.  They  have  gone  out  from  it  carrying  to 
other  churches  the  breadth  of  view,  the  tolerance  of 
other  people' s  opinions,  the  indift'erence  to  forms  and 
externals,  and  the  personal  love  for  a  personal  Saviour 
which  they  have  learned  here.  They  have  been  active 
as  founders  of  new  churches,  not  only  in  New  York, 
Brooklyn,  and  vicinity,  but  all  over  the  land.  Not  a 
few  such  have  taken  the  name,  still  more  have  im- 
bibed something  of  the  spirit  of  the  mother  church. 
The  graduates  of  Plymouth  Church  are  all  proud  of 
their  alma  mater ^  all  look  back  with  loving  remem- 
brance to  their  associations  with  her,  and  when  they 
visit  Brooklyn  return  to  their  mother  church  with  love 
in  their  hearts  and  tears  in  their  eyes,  as  children  who 
return  to  their  home  after  long  separations.  Such 
greetings  in  the  morning  services  or  at  Friday  evening 


262  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

prayer- meetings  are  common.  During  all  tliese  years 
this  community  has  never  known  a  quarrel.  Differ- 
ences of  oiDinions  have  been  developed,  warm  discus- 
sions have  taken  place,  but  no  quarrel  lias  ever  broken 
that  love  which  is  "the  bond  of  perfectness."  The 
social  unity  which  characterized  the  church  in  its 
earlier  days  it  is  impossible  to  maintain  in  one  of 
twenty-four  hundred  members,  scattered  over  two 
cities.  But  cliques  and  caste  in  an  offensive  sense  are 
unknown,  and  party  differences  and  divisions  are  ab- 
solutely unheard  of.  In  all  the  excitements  through 
which  the  church  has  passed,  in  all  the  battles  in  which 
Mr.  Beecher  has  been  engaged,  his  church  has  never 
faltered  in  its  love  and  loyalty  for  him.  Jealous  of 
its  independence,  recognizing  in  its  pastor  no  ecclesi- 
astical rights  which  do  not  inhere  in  the  humblest 
member,  not  infrequently  refusing  to  follow  his  lead, 
and  always  subjecting  his  recommendations  on  all 
matters  of  church  business  to  the  freest  possible  criti- 
cism, it  has  yet  stood  about  him  personally  with  a 
sympathy  which  no  slanders  could  chill,  and  with  a 
fidelity  which  no  assaults  could  weaken,  loyal  in  its 
love  for  him  through  good  rejiort  and  evil  report,  in 
times  of  popularity  and  in  times  of  abuse,  undivided 
and  unshaken. 

"Mr,  Beecher' s  life,"  well  whites  to  me  one  of  the 
older  members  of  his  church,  "  can  never  be  fully 
given  to  posterity  without  some  adequate  understand- 
ing of  Plymouth  Church,  as  an  illustration  of  his 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  his  peculiar  and 
wonderful  skill  in  swaying  great  bodies  of  men.  It  is 
isomething  different  from  the  power  of  the  orator,  who 


WHAT   DRAWS   THE   CROWD.  263 

influences  for  the  occasion  only.  It  is  a  wisdom  of 
administration  that  for  tliirty-five  years  has  held 
together  a  body  of  two  thousand  people  of  the  most 
varying  opinions,  drawn  from  all  the  sects  in  Christen- 
dom, who  have  worked  together  in  every  form  of 
benevolence,  in  the  church  and  in  the  community, 
without  dissension  or  disagreement,  and  as  far  as  can 
be  said  of  anything  earthly,  without  variance  or  shadow 
of  turning."" 

To  the  casual  visitor,  Plymouth  Church  is  simply  a 
great  gathering-place  on  the  Sabbath  of  three  thousand 
peojDle,  drawn  together  by  the  magnetism  of  a  great 
orator.  Even  as  such  it  is  a  remarkable  phenomenon. 
For  thirty-five  years  the  same  orator,  standing  on  the 
same  platform  and  under  the  same  roof,  has  drawn 
these  audiences,  and  the  throng  is  as  great  to-day  as 
when  his  face  was  strange,  and  his  voice  new,  and  he 
possessed  all  the  attractions  with  which  the  enthusi- 
asm of  youth  in  a  period  of  strong  public  excitement 
invests  a  new  contributor  to  public  discussions. 

"  How  shall  I  get  to  Plymouth  Church?"  asked  a 
stranger  in  IN'ew  York  of  a  Plymouth  Church  mem- 
ber. "  Cross  Fulton  Perry  and  follow  the  crowd," 
was  the  reply.  He  who  ol:)eys  this  dkection  on  any 
Sabbath  morning  between  the  first  of  October  and 
the  first  of  July,  will  find  himself  at  ten  o'clock  in 
the  morning  in  an  irregular,  informal,  but  consider- 
able procession  going  up  Hicks  Street,  and  turning 
the  corner  of  Orange  Street  he  will  reach  the  front 
of  a  plain  brick  edifice  without  tower,  steeple,  or 
ornament  of  any  kind.  Entering,  he  will  find  the 
"  meeting-house"  as  plain  within  as  without ;  a  nearly 


264  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

square  audience-room,  with  large  galleries  running 
round  tliree  sides,  and  a  second  gallery  or  loft  at  the 
rear  ;  plain  white  walls,  plain  white  wood- work — in 
short,  an  audience-room  as  unchurchlike  as  can  be  * 
imagined,  for  it  neither  resembles  an  ancient  cathe- 
dral nor  a  modern  theatre.  At  the  farther  end  is 
a  platform,  on  which  there  is  always  a  bouquet  of 
flowers,  and  on  the  platform  three  chairs  and  a  small 
reading-desk.  The  only  bit  of  conventionalism  about 
the  church  is  the  huge  x^nlpit  Bible,  which  is  still  al- 
lowed to  lie  on  this  desk,  why  I  do  not  know,  as  Mr. 
Beecher  always  reads  from  a  small  Bible  which  he 
holds  in  his  hand,  and  always  lays  his  notes  loosely  ; 
on  the  desk,  never  cunningly  concealed,  after  the  pro- 
fessional manner,  in  tlie  pages  of  the  big  Bible.  Di- 
rectly in  the  rear  of  the  platform,  a  little  above  it,  is 
a  small  choir  gallery  and  a  big  organ,  which  is  too 
large  for  its  space,  and  obtrudes  itself  somewhat  osten- 
tatiously upon  the  congregation,  as  much  as  to  say, 
"  If  you  doubt  whether  you  are  in  a  church,  look  at 
me !"  If  our  visitor  is  a  church-goer  his  doubt 
whether  he  is  in  a  church  will  be  somewhat  increased 
by  the  general  atmosphere  of  the  place  ;  this  is  not 
spiritual,  but  pre-eminently  social.  It  is  now  ten  min- 
utes past  ten,  and  the  congregation  are  beginning  to  as- 
semble. Instead  of  kneeling  with  bowed  head  upon 
the  hassock,  or  sitting  in  meditative  silence,  they  are 
chatting  with  each  other,  reaching  across  aisles  and 
pews  to  shake  hands,  introducing  new  friends,  or  wel- 
coming old  ones.  There  is  no  loud  and  boisterous 
talking,  but  people  do  not  think  it  needful  to  speak  in 
whispers  ;  there  is  no  hilarious  laughter,    but  genial 


THE   CONGREGATION   OF   PLYMOUTH   CHURCBI.        265 

humor  and  a  quiet  laugh  are  not  so  rare  as  to  attract 
any  attention.  Now  and  then  a  man  without  a  com- 
panion to  talk  to  takes  a  daily  paper  out  of  his  pocket 
and  reads  the  news.  To  some  reverent-minded  people, 
accustomed  to  come  to  the  sanctuary  to  worship  God, 
this  seems  irreverent  and  almost  shocking.  But  when 
I  see  how  many  churches  there  are  with  pillared  naves 
and  dim  religious  light,  half  filled  or  hardly  that,  and 
how  many  groups  of  men  and  boj^s  there  are  upon  the 
streets  of  a  Sabbath  morning  to  whom  dim  religious 
light  has  no  attractions,  I  am  myself  inclined  to  think 
that  there  are  churches  enough  for  those  who  want  to 
worship  God,  and  that  there  is  room  for  some  new 
churches  for  people  of  a  less  spiritual  and  more  social 
turn  of  mind,  who  might  be  drawn  to  church  by  social 
attractions  and  inspired  to  worship  after  they  got  there. 
Such  at  all  events  is  Plymouth  Church.  Its  invitation 
and  its  welcome  are  social  ;  its  food  is  intellectual  and 
spiritual.  As  the  minute  hand  draws  near  to  half  i)ast 
ten  the  congregation  gather  more  rapidly  ;  at  twenty 
minutes  past  ten  the  seats  not  already  occupied  by  the 
pew-holders  are,  by  the  terms  of  the  renting,  free,  and 
the  ushers  begin  to  fill  them  up  ;  at  twenty-five  minutes 
past,  the  aisle  seats,  of  which  one  is  attached  to  every 
pew  and  by  a  curious  contrivance  folded  up  against  it, 
are  opened  with  a  sharp  clicking  noise,  all  over  the 
house,  and  occupied  ;  at  twenty-eight  minutes  j)ast  ten 
Mr.  Beecher  has  entered  through  a  little  door  in  the 
rear  of  the  pulpit,  his  notes  in  hand,  and  takes  bis  seat  ; 
and  at  half  past  ten,  exactly,  the  organ  begins  its  vol- 
untary, every  seat  in  the  church  is  filled,  and  he  who 
arrives  after  that  must  stand,  or  sit  on  the  pulpit  stairs, 


266  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

if  he  is  fortunate  enongli  to  get  within  the  doors  at  all. 
It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  hundreds  to  go  away. 

The  choir  is  a  large  chorus,  which  has  broken  over 
the  bounds  of  the  choir  gallery,  into  the  end  seats  of 
the  other  galleries.  It  renders  the  opening  anthem 
effectively,  but  rather  with  force  and  vigor  than  with 
delicacy  and  retinement.  Its  chief  function  is  to  lead 
the  congregational  singing,  and  this  it  does  perfectly. 
Hymn  and  tune  books  are  scattered  throughout  the 
congregation  ;  and  every  one  sings.  It  is  worth  while 
to  go  to  Plymouth  Church  were  it  only  to  hear  three 
thousand  people  join  in  singing,  "  How  Firm  a  Foun- 
dation," to  the  Portuguese  hymn,  or  "  Love  Divine,  all 
Love  Excelling  "  to  the  tune  of  Beecher.  Such  sing- 
ing is  to  be  heard  nowhere  else.  In  Dr.  Allon's  church 
in  London  the  congregation  sing  with  better  musical 
taste  and  render  music  far  more  difficult ;  but  even  in 
Dr.  Allons  the  abandon,  the  enthusiasm,  the  "  making 
a  joyful  noise  unto  the  Lord,"  does  not  equal  that  of 
Plymouth  Church  congregation.  The  one  is  an  Eng- 
lish, the  other  is  an  American  singing. 

Up  to  the  close  of  the  anthem  the  atmosphere  has 
been  social.  The  choir  is  too  prominent,  the  me- 
chanics of  the  music  too  evident,  the  quality  of  per- 
formance too  manifest  to  allow  the  opening  piece  to 
produce  much  atmospheric  effect.  Mr.  Beecher  rises, 
and  by  his  two  minutes  of  invocation  changes  the 
entire  atmosphere.  We  are  no  longer  in  a  lecture- 
room,  we  are  in  a  church  ;  no  testimony  to  the  power 
of  simple  character  could  be,  I  think,  more  striking 
than  the  change  which  is  wrought  by  this  opening 
prayer.     For  the  prayer  itself  is  perfectly  simple.     It 


MANNER  OF   WORSHIP.  267 

is  rather  a  meditation  tlian  a  prayer.  It  is  less  a  sup- 
plication than  a  simple  opening  of  the  heart  to  receive 
the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  voice  is  low  and  ten- 
der ;  it  is  at  first  heard  with  difficulty  at  the  farther 
end  of  the  church.  But  the  bustling  congregation  is 
absolutely  hushed  and  still.  There  are  no  late  comers 
to  disturb  and  convert  the  invocation  into  a  cold  for- 
mality ;  no  creaking  boots  down  the  aisle,  for  the 
aisles  are  full ;  no  seating  of  strangers,  for  the  seats  are 
all  occupied  ;  no  opening  and  closing  of  doors,  for  the 
line  of  latest  comers  fills  the  doorway.  The  bustle 
which  so  often  obtrudes  itself  upon  a  congregation 
until  almost  the  time  for  the  sermon  to  begin,  is  over 
In  Plymouth  Church  before  the  anthem  is  ended.  And 
the  opening  prayer  is  a  true  prayer,  a  doorway  opened 
through  which,  as  it  were,  God  enters  last  of  all,  to 
reach  his  i)eox)le.  The  rest  of  the  service  is  in  form 
like  that  in  most  New  England  churches.  The  modi- 
fied liturgy  which  some  of  our  non -liturgical  churches 
have  adopted  Plj^mouth  Church  has  never  attempted. 
The  hymns  are  announced,  but  rarely  read  ;  when  one 
is  read  the  reading  is  all  the  more  effective  for  the 
fact  that  it  is  rare.  The  Scripture  reading  is  very 
seldom  accompanied  with  any  other  comment  than 
that  of  a  peculiar  emphasis,  giving  to  the  text  a  pecul- 
iar power,  and  sometimes  an  absolutely  new  meaning. 
If  you  come  in  the  evening  you  will  find  another 
congregation  as  large  as  that  which  assembled  in  the 
morning,  but  almost  wholly  different.  The  pew-hold- 
ers are  absent ;  strangers  have  taken  their  places.  The 
services  and  the  sermon  are  modified  accordingly  The 
morning  prayers  are  largely  meditative,  the  evening 


268  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

prayers  are  supplicating  ;  tlie  morning  prayers  are  in 
the  spirit  of  tlie  17tli  of  Jolm,  the  evening  prayers  in 
the  spirit  of  the  Lord's  prayer.  There  is  the  same 
difference  between  tlie  sermons.  The  morning  sermons 
are  preached  to  the  church,  the  evening  sermons  to  the 
w^orld  ;  the  morning  sermons  are  doctrinal  and  spirit- 
ual, the  evening  sermons  are  x^ractical  and  persuasive  ; 
in  the  morning  Mr.  Beecher  fulfils  the  second  half  of 
Christ's  commission,  instructing  Christ's  disciples  to 
do  all  things  whatsoever  Christ  has  commanded  them  ; 
in  the  evening  the  first  part  of  that  commission,  herald- 
ing to  all  classes  the  gospel.  The  jDurely  theological 
sermons  are  always  given  in  the  morning  ;  the  purely 
ethical  and  political  sermons  are  generally  given  in  the 
evening. 

The  Plymouth  Church  lot  extends  from  Orange 
Street  through  to  Cranberry  Street.  In  the  rear  of  the 
church,  fronting  on  Cranberr}^  Street,  but  entered  from 
either  end,  is  a  two-story  edifice  which  serves  a  triple 
purpose.  The  first  floor  is  a  large  audience-room  which 
will  easily  seat  eight  or  nine  hundred  people  ;  this  is 
the  lecture-room.  Along  its  side,  on  a  floor  elevated 
a  little  above  it,  and  separated  from  the  lecture-room 
by  sliding  doors,  are  the  social  parlors.  In  case  of 
necessity — and  in  times  of  special  religious  interest  this 
necessity  often  exists — these  doors  can  be  thrown  open 
and  the  parlors  made  a  part  of  the  lecture-room,  add- 
ing to  it  a  further  seating  capacity  of  three  or  four 
hundred.  Connected  with  the  parlors  is  a  kitchen  ; 
adjoining  them  a  small  room  for  meetings  of  commit- 
tees, trustees,  and  the  like.  In  the  second  story  is  the 
Sunday-school  room,   which  is   equipjoed  with  both 


FRIDAY   EVENING   MEETINGS.  269 

organ  and  piano,  with  special  rooms  tliat  can  be  sep- 
arated from  or  connected  with  the  main  room  by  slid- 
ing doors  or  windows,  which  are  used  for  infant  and 
Bible  classes.  There  is  but  one  weekly  meeting  of  the 
church.  This  is  the  Friday  evening  meeting.  It  is  a 
meeting  for  instruction  rather  than  for  prayer,  though 
always  oj^ened  by  several  prayers  from  different  mem- 
bers of  the  church,  interspersed  with  singing.  It  is  a 
meeting  for  instruction  by  the  pastor  rather  than  for 
conference,  experience,  or  mutual  exhortation  although 
there  is  always  an  opportunity  for  others  than  the  pas- 
tor, and  it  is  often  taken  advantage  of  with  a  consider- 
able degree  of  freedom.  A  meeting  in  this  lecture- 
room  Mr.  Parton  has  described  in  his  "  Famous 
Americans."  Mr.  Parton  is  not  himself  famous  for 
his  spirituality  ;  and  the  reader  will  be  interested  in 
his  description,  as  showing  how  this  meeting  strikes 
an  average  man  of  the  world,  of  intellectual  quickness 
and  acumen,  but  without  spiritual  warmth. 

"  The  room  is  largo,  very  lofty,  brilliantly  lighted  by  reflectors 
affixed  to  the  ceiling,  and,  except  the  scarlet  cushions  on  the 
settees,  void  of  uj^holstery.  It  was  filled  full  with  a  cheerful 
company,  not  one  of  whom  seemed  to  have  on  more  or  richer 
clothes  than  she  had  the  moral  strength  to  wear.  Content  and 
pleasant  expectation  sat  on  every  countenance,  as  when  people 
have  come  to  a  festival,  and  await  the  summons  to  the  banquet. 
No  pulpit,  or  anything  like  a  pulpit,  casts  a  shadow  over  the 
scene  ;  but  in  its  stead  there  was  rather  a  large  platform,  raised 
two  steps,  covered  with  dark  green  canvas,  and  having  upon  it 
a  very  small  table  and  one  chair.  The  red-cushioned  settees  were 
so  arranged  as  to  inclose  the  green  platform  all  about,  except  on 
one  side  ;  so  that  he  who  should  sit  upon  it  would  appear  to  be 


270  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

in  the  midst  of  tlic  people,  raised  above  tliem  that  all  might  see 
him,  yet  still  among  them  and  one  of  them.  At  one  side  of  the 
platform,  but  on  the  floor  of  the  room,  among  the  settees,  there 
was  a  piano  open.  Mr.  Beecher  sat  near  by,  reading  what 
appeared  to  be  a  letter  of  three  or  four  sheets.  The  whole  scene 
was  so  little  like  what  we  commonly  understand  by  the  word 
*  meeting, '  the  people  there  were  so  little  in  a  'meeting'  state 
of  mind,  and  the  subsequent  proceedings  were  so  informal, 
unstudied,  and  social,  that  in  attempting  to  give  this  account  of 
them,  we  almost  feel  as  if  we  were  reporting  for  print  the  con- 
versation of  a  private  evening  party.  Anything  more  unlike  an 
old-fashioned  prayer- meeting  it  is  not  possible  to  conceive. 

"  Mr.  Beecher  took  his  seat  upon  the  platform,  and,  after  a 
short  pause,  began  the  exercises  by  saying,  in  a  low  tone,  these 
words,  'Six  twenty-two. ' 

"  A  rustling  of  the  leaves  of  hymn-books  interpreted  the 
meaning  of  this  mystical  utterance,  which  otherwise  might  have 
been  taken  as  announcing  a  discourse  upon  the  prophetic  num- 
bers. The  piano  confirmed  the  interpretation  ;  and  then  the 
company  burst  into  one  of  those  joyous  and  unanimous  singings 
which  are  so  enchanting  a  feature  of  the  services  of  this  church. 
Loud  rose  the  beautiful  harmony  of  voices,  constraining  every  one 
to  join  in  the  song,  even  those  most  unused  to  sing.  When  it 
was  ended,  the  pastor,  in  the  same  low  tone,  pronounced  a  name  ; 
upon  which  one  of  the  brethren  rose  to  his  feet,  and  the  rest  of 
the  assembly  slightly  inclined  their  heads.  It  would  not,  as  we 
have  remarked,  be  becoming  in  us  to  say  anything  upon  this 
portion  of  the  proceedings,  except  to  note  that  the  prayers  were 
all  brief,  perfectly  quiet  and  simple,  and  free  from  the  routine  or 
regulation  expressions.  There  were  but  two  or  three  of  them, 
alternating  with  singing  ;  and  when  that  part  of  the  exercises  was 
concluded,  Mr.  Beecher  had  scarcely  spoken.  The  meeting  ran 
along,  in  the  most  spontaneous  and  pleasant  manner  ;  and  with 
all   his   heartiness   and   simplicity,    there   was   a   certain   refined 


MR.   PARTON   ON   PLYMOUTH   PRAYER-MEETING.       271 

decorum  pervading  all  that  was  done  and  said.  There  was  a 
pause  after  the  last  hymn  died  away,  and  then  Mr.  Beecher,  still 
seated,  began,  in  the  tone  of  conversation,  to  speak,  somewhat 
after  this  manner. 

"  '  When,'  said  he,  '  I  first  began  to  walk  as  a  Christian,  in 
my  youthful  zeal  I  made  many  resolutions  that  were  well  meant, 
but  indiscreet.  Among  others,  I  remember,  I  resolved  to  pray, 
at  least  in  some  way,  every  hour  that  I  was  awake.  I  tried  faith- 
fully to  keep  this  resolution,  but  never  having  succeeded  a  single 
day,  I  suffered  the  pangs  of  self-reproach  until  reflection  satisfied 
me  that  the  only  possible  wisdom  with  regard  to  such  a  resolve 
was  to  break  it.  I  remember,  too,  that  I  made  a  resolution  to 
speak  upon  religion  to  every  person  with  whom  I  conversed,  on 
steamboats,  in  the  streets,  anywhere.  In  this,  also,  I  failed,  as  I 
ought  ;  and  I  soon  learned  that,  in  the  sowing  of  such  seed,  as  in 
other  sowings,  times  and  seasons  and  methods  must  be  considered 
and  selected,  or  a  man  may  defeat  his  own  object,  and  make  relig- 
ion loathsome.' 

."  In  language  like  this  he  introduced  the  topic  of  the  evening's 
conversation,  which  was.  How  far,  and  on  what  occasions,  and  in 
what  manner,  one  person  may  invade,  so  to  speak,  the  personality 
of  another,  and  speak  to  him  upon  his  moral  condition.  The 
pastor  expressed  his  own  opinion,  always  in  the  conversational 
tone,  in  a  talk  of  ten  minutes'  duration  ;  in  the  course  of  which  he 
applauded,  not  censured,  the  delicacy  which  causes  most  people 
to  shrink  from  doing  it.  He  said  that  a  man's  personality  was 
not  a  macadamized  road  for  every  vehicle  to  drive  upon  at  will  ; 
but  rather  a  sacred  inclosure,  to  be  entered,  if  at  all,  with  the 
consent  of  the  owner,  and  with  deference  to  his  feelings  and  tastes. 
He  maintained,  however,  that  there  were  times  and  modes  in  which 
this  might  properly  be  done,  and  that  every  one  had  a  duty  to 
perform  of  this  nature. 

*'  When  he  had  finished  his  observations,  he  said  the  subject  was 
open  to  the  remarks  of  others. ' ' 
17 


272  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

We  will  not  follow  Mr.  Parton  in  Ms  report  of  what 
followed.  It  would  be  valuable  here  only  as  illustrat- 
ing what  is  a  characteristic  feature  of  these  meetings, 
the  utter  disregard  of  conventionalism  and  even  of  what 
many  would  regard  the  proprieties  of  a  religious  meet- 
ing. Mr.  Beecher  always  keeps  his  seat.  He  not  un- 
frequently  interrupts  others  with  a  question,  they 
sometimes  interrupt  him,  A  good-humored  play  of 
feeling  or  fancy  is  not  uncommon ;  and  rippling 
laughter  is  not  regarded  as  any  infringement  of  the 
decorum  of  the  j^lace.  Sometimes  this  proves  a  seri- 
ous embarrassment  to  a  stranger.  I  remember  on  one 
revival  occasion  a  pious  but  rather  solemn  brother 
from  Philadelphia  was  giving  an  account  of  the  revival 
meetings  in  that  city.  He  went,  he  told  us,  to  an 
early  morning  prayer-meeting,  a  noon  business  man's 
prayer-meeting,  an  afternoon  union  prayer-meeting 
at  three  o'clock,  a  lecture  or  prayer-meeting  in  the 
evening,  and  an  inquiry-meeting  after  that.  "  You 
may  ask,"  he  said,  "  how  I  was  able  to  attend  so 
many  meetings,  and  also  to  attend  to  my  business. 
But  it  so  happened,  in  the  providence  of  God,  that  I 
hadn't  any  business  to  attend  to."  He  said  it  with  a 
solemn  naivete  which  was'  irresistible  ;  a  smile  broke 
over  Mr.  Beecher' s  face,  and  a  genuine  ripple  of  quiet 
laughter  ran  round  the  room.  The  poor  man  was  hor- 
ror-struck at  a  prayer-meeting  in  laughter,  and  sat 
down  as  though  he  had  been  shot,  while  Mr.  Beecher 
turned  off  his  embarrassment  with  a  pleasant  word  and 
caught  up  the  broken  thread  of  the  meeting  with  that 
peculiar  tact  which  is  not  the  least  of  his  many  and 
diverse  gifts. 


MORNING   PRAYER-MEETINGS.  273 

Mr.  Parton  lias  given  one  picture  of  these  meetings  ; 
it  would  take  a  large  picture  gallery  to  represent  their 
varied  aspects.  For  these  walls  have  witnessed  many- 
scenes  of  most  profound  spiritual  emotion,  and  if  they 
could  speak  what  they  have  seen  and  heard  could  tell 
the  story  of  many  a  conversion  wrought  and  many 
more  recorded  through  the  influence  which  Plymouth 
Church  prayer-meetings  have  exerted.  Probably  the 
most  sacred  season  in  the  history  of  this  room  was  the 
season  of  1857  and  1858.  I  well  remember  the  stormy, 
snowy  Monday  morning  in  February  when  a  few  of  us, 
twenty-eight  in  number,  I  think,  met  for  a  first  morn- 
ing prayer-meeting.  Religious  interest  had  been  deep- 
ening throughout  the  country,  it  had  been  deepening 
in  Plymouth  Church  ;  but  to  all  requests  to  appoint 
a  protracted  meeting,  Mr.  Beecher  had  but  one  reply. 
He  disavowed  his  belief  in  "  got  up  "  revivals,  saying 
that  if  the  spirit  of  revival  was  in  the  church  the  re- 
vival itself  would  follow.  For  two  weeks  this  morn- 
ing meeting  was  continued,  without  Mr.  Beecher' s 
presence  ;  to  some  he  even  seemed  to  discourage  the 
work  by  refusing  to  participate  in  it,  but  his  purpose 
was  to  put  the  responsibility  upon  his  people,  and  he 
achieved  his  object.  Reluctantly  but  gradually  they 
took  it,  the  meetings  steadily  increased  in  size  and  in- 
terest ;  and  at  last,  at  the  close  of  a  Sabbath  evening 
inquiry  meeting,  he  announced  his  purpose  to  be  pres- 
ent at  the  next  morning  prayer-meeting.  This  was 
March  11th,  and  from  that  day  till  July  3d  those 
morning  meetings  were  kej^t  up,  I  believe  without  a 
break,  and  almost  without  a  single  absence  of  the  pas- 
tor.     They  who  attended  these  meetings  will  never 


374  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

forget  them  ;  their  freedom  of  intercourse,  theu*  social 
warmth,  their  spiritual  tenderness.  Thek  commingling 
of  humor  and  pathos,  of  the  intellectual  and  the  emo- 
tional, of  the  practical  and  the  sjDiritual,  in  a  word 
their  life^  genuine,  free,  untrammeled,  varied  life, 
gave  them  a  character  wholly  indescribable.  What- 
ever the  spirit  of  the  meeting  had  been,  at  the  close 
Mr.  Beecher  invariably  rose  and  invited  any  present 
who  wished  so  to  do  to  oifer  their  requests  for  x^rayers, 
for  others  or  themselves,  and  then,  catching  instantly 
and  repeating  to  the  meeting  the  request,  often  fal- 
tered out  by  wife  or  sister  or  mother,  almost  under 
breath,  finally  gathered  them  uj)  and  grouped  them  to- 
gether in  a  supplication  which  forgot  not  one  ;  and  the 
whole  meeting  always  caught  the  spirit  of  his  spiritual 
tenderness  and  sympathy,  and  ended  in  a  communion 
with  God,  the  more  delightful  that  it  had  been  pre- 
ceded by  an  hour  of  communion  with  one  another  so 
entirely  spontaneous  and  free.* 

The  regular  Friday  evening  meetings,  it  should  be 
added,  furnish  Mr.  Beecher  his  pastoral  opportunity. 
Mr.  Beecher  never  does  any  house  to  house  visitation  ; 
and  now  he  rarely  conducts  even  a  funeral  or  calls  on 
those  in  sorrow.  But  he  nevertheless  does  a  consider- 
able amount  of  j^astoral  work.  At  the  close  of  his 
Friday  evening  meeting  he  holds  what  I  may  call  a  re- 
ligious reception.  For  sometimes  half  an  hour  after 
the  regular  service  is  closed,  he  sits  on  the  platform 

*  A  little  memorial  of  the  revival  in  Plymoutli  Church  was  published 
(Clark,  Austin  &  Smith,  1859),  containing  an  account  of  these  meetings, 
but  there  is  no  space  here  to  quote  incidents  from  it.  The  book  is  now 
out  of  print  and  rare. 


MR.  BEECHER'S  INSIGHT.'  275 

to  receive,  hear,  suggest,  counsel,  direct.  He  shakes 
hands  with  any  one  who  offers  him  a  hand.  No  name 
escapes  him.  A  friend  returned  after  a  long  absence 
is  instantly  recognized  and  greeted  with  the  warm 
cordiality  of  a  love  that  is  without  dissimulation.  If 
one  of  his  j)arishioners  wants  to  see  him  privately  he 
sits  down  vntli  him  in  a  pew,  hears  his  experience, 
divines  it  before  it  is  half  told,  enters  into  it  with  a 
heart  full  of  sympathy,  and  meets  it  with  a  sentence 
which  goes  right  to  the  heart  of  the  matter,  sometimes 
hurting  at  the  time,  but  serving  perhaps  all  the  better 
for  that  very  reason  afterward.  "  What  shall  I  do,  Mr. 
Beecher?"  asked  a  lady  parishioner  in  domestic  trou- 
ble. "  Where  can  I  go  for  help  V  "  Is  it  possible," 
answered  Mr.  Beecher,  "that  I  have  been  preaching 
to  you  all  these  years,  and  you  do  not  know  where  to 
go  for  helj)?"  "It  hurt  meat  the  time,"  said  this 
lady,  afterward  speaking  to  me  ;  "  but  I  never  forgot 
it ;  and  when  his  troubles  came  I  knew  where  his  help 
came  from."  Generosity  of  symj^athy  and  quickness 
of  insight  are  a  part  of  Mr.  Beecher' s  genius  ;  his 
sympathy  opens  your  heart  to  him,  his  insight  quick- 
ly discerns  its  wants  ;  and  thus  he  is  often  able  to  ac- 
complish in  an  hour  an  amount  of  pastoral  work  which 
a  man  less  magnetic,  less  sympathetic,  less  quick  in 
mental  and  spiritual  action  would  require  days  to  ac- 
complish. 

But  if  Mr.  Beecher  rarely  performs  what  are  known 
as  pastoral  services,  Plymouth  Church  is  not  pastor- 
less.  She  has  in  the  Rev.  Samuel  B.  Halliday  a  Pas- 
toral Helper  who  is  admirably  qualified  for  the  i)er- 
sonal  work  of  the  pastoral  office  ;  his  warm  heart,  his 


376  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

spiritual  earnestness,  his  intensely  practical  common- 
sense,  and  liis  tender  sympathies,  make  him  a  valued 
friend  and  a  wise  counsellor.  The  whole  work  of  pas- 
toral administration  is  largely  in  his  hands.  He  visits 
the  sick,  converses  with  inquirers,  oversees  the  mission 
work  in  its  various  departments,  keeps  account  of  the 
church  charities,  attends  the  funerals,  and  even  cele- 
brates the  weddings.  He  is  honored  and  loved  by  the 
entire  church,  and  by  none  more  than  by  Mr.  Beecher 
himself,  whose  spirit  he  has  caught  and  with  whose 
views  and  methods  he  is  not  the  less  in  perfect  sympa- 
thy, that  he  is  a  man  of  singular  and  ahnost  idiosyn- 
cratic independence.  The  division  of  labor  between 
pastors  and  teachers  dates  from  the  apostolic  age. 
Plymouth  Church  in  having  one  man  for  its  teacher 
and  another  for  its  pastor  has  ventured  on  an  experi- 
ment which  many  have  declared  can  never  succeed.  It 
seems,  however,  to  have  succeeded  perfectly  in  this 
instance  ;  and  it  is  at  least  a  fair  question  whether 
churches  might  not  well  adopt  the  same  principle  in 
whole  or  in  part,  by  relieving  their  teacher  of  the  de- 
tail of  pastoral  labor,  and  by  putting  them  upon  an 
assistant  or  even  upon  office-bearers  who  in  too  many 
American  churches  bear  nothing  but  the  name  of  their 
offices. 

Up  to  about  1860  these  services,  those  of  the  Sab- 
bath and  of  Friday  evening,  practically  constituted 
Plymouth  Church.  There  were  social  gatherings,  and 
a  sewing  circle,  and  various  like  attempts  at  organiza- 
tion ;  and  there  was  a  Sabbath-school  connected  with 
the  church,  of  course.  But  the  Sabbath-school  was  in 
no  way  worthy  of  the  church,  and  the  missionary  and 


PLYMOUTH   CHURCH   MISSION   SCHOOLS.  377 

social  organizations  were  for  the  most  part  fitful  and 
transient.  In  1858  the  church  had  not  a  single  mission 
it  could  call  its  own.  And  still  its  young  men  were 
not  idle.  I  was  teaching  a  Bible  class  of  young  men 
that  year  in  connection  with  the  church.  I  wanted  to 
change  it  from  a  morning  to  an  afternoon  session,  but 
every  member  of  my  class  was  engaged  in  some  sort  of 
missionary  work,  though  not  in  work  organically  con- 
nected with  Plymouth  Church.  Under  George  A.  Bell 
the  Sunday-school  was  reorganized  in  1862,  and  pro- 
vided with  its  x)resent  admirable  accommodations. 
Five  years  later,  under  the  same  skilful  organizer,  the 
Bethel  Mission,  formerly  a  union  missionary  work,  ex- 
cellent in  spirit  but  poor  in  equipment,  feeble  in  re- 
sources and  small  in  results,  was  adopted  by  Plym- 
outh Church  and  put  in  possession  of  an  admirably 
equipped  building.  Four  years  after  that  the  church 
adopted  the  Mayflower  Mission,  which  had  maintained 
a  checkered  existence  under  great  discouragement  and 
disadvantage  for  nearly  thirty  years  before  that  time  ; 
a  church  building  was  purchased  and  remodelled  for 
its  use ;  and  this,  its  present  home,  is  one  of  the  best 
adapted  and  most  attractive  missions  in  the  city.  The 
property  of  both  missions  is  entirely  free  from  debt. 
Plymouth  Church  is  no  longer  a  mere  congregation  ;  it 
is  a  working  body,  well  organized,  with  three  Sunday- 
schools,  two  of  them  missions,  each  with  its  own  inde- 
pendent social  and  religious  life.  Both  the  missions 
have  well-equipped  free  reading-rooms,  open  in  the 
evenings,  well  supplied  with  daily  and  weekly  news- 
papers and  the  best  magazines,  and  always  well  filled 
with  readers.     Both  have  libraries  which  are  well  fur- 


378  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

nislied,  not  witli  the  average  Sunday-scliool  books,  but 
with  the  best  English  classics — Scott,  Dickens,  Thack- 
eray, Hawthorne,  Cooper,  Howells,  being  among  the 
story  writers  represented  in  its  shelves.  The  library  of 
the  Bethel  nnmbers  two  thousand  books.  There  are 
Bible  classes  for  adults  sufficient  in  size  to  constitute  a 
very  respectable  congregation,  with  a  teacher  who  is, 
in  fact,  though  not  in  name,  a  lay  preacher.  There 
are  social  parlors  where  there  are  gatherings,  some- 
times religious,  sometimes  social,  sometimes  an  inter- 
mixture of  the  two.  Sabbath  evening  services  are 
held,  at  which  there  are  either  lay  addresses  or  a  more 
formal  sermon  by  a  minister.  A  monthly  paper  de- 
voted to  the  interest  of  Plymouth  Church  and  its  two 
missions,  keeps  the  great  body  of  the  church  ac- 
quainted with  the  progress  and  prospects  of  this  gospel 
work.  The  warm  feeling  of  personal  loyalty  which  the 
workers  in  these  missions  feel  for  them  is  one  of  the 
strongest  indications  of  the  permanent  quality  both  of 
their  work  and  of  the  organizations  which  have  grown 
up  out  of  it. 

The  organization  of  Plymouth  Church  is  congrega- 
tional, and  however  it  may  be  accused  of  having  de- 
parted from  the  theology,  it  certainly  has  not  departed 
from  the  ecclesiastical  simplicity  of  the  Puritans.  All 
business  is  transacted  in  o^Den  meetings.  All  members 
of  the  church  vote.  Nothing  is  relegated  to  a  stand- 
ing committee  or  board.  Even  the  Examining  Com- 
mittee hold  their  sessions  at  the  close  of  the  prayer- 
meeting,  and  all  members  of  the  church  are  at  liberty 
to  remain  and  listen  to  the  examination  if  they  will. 
The  church  is  in  theory  and  practice  a  little  communi- 


PLYMOUTH  CHURCH  COVENANT.         279 

ty  of  Christian  believers,  all  of  whom  from  the  pastor 
to  the  poorest  and  humblest  member  stand  upon  an 
eqiiality.  No  person  has  any  greater  authority  than 
his  personal  influence  gives  to  him.  The  church  has  a 
creed  or  articles  of  faith  ;  they  were  adopted  in  1848. 
These  are  strictly  evangelical  and  include  an  explicit 
statement  of  the  doctrine  of  the  fall  and  of  everlasting 
punishment.  But  since  1870  persons  joining  the  church 
are  not  required  to  assent  to  these  articles  of  faith. 
They  simply  assent  to  the  following  covenant  and  en- 
ter into  covenant  with  the  church  : 

"  Do  you  now  avouch  the  Lord  Jehovah  to  be  your  God,  Jesus 
Christ  to  bo  your  Saviour,  the  Holy  Spirit  to  be  your  Sanctifier  ? 
Renouncing  the  dominion  of  this  world  over  you,  do  you  conse- 
crate your  whole  s&ul  and  body  to  the  service  of  God  ?  Do  you 
receive  his  word  as  the  rule  of  your  life,  and  by  his  grace  assisting 
you,  will  you  persevere  in  this  consecration  unto  the  end  ?"  / 

In  the  prayer-meetings  in  1858,  of  which  I  have  given 
some  account  above,  Mr.  Beecher  said :  "  Some  men 
scy,  '  I  would  become  a  Christian,  if  I  only  first  un- 
derstood all  the  doctrines  of  Christianity.  Tell  me 
what  is  this  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  of  the  atonement, 
of  Justification,  of  adoption  1 '  My  reply  to  all  such 
persons  is,  '  You  need  no  such  instruction  as  this  ;  you 
know  already  much  on  all  these  subjects  and  are  no 
better  for  it.  What  you  need  is  to  put  on  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  as  your  Saviour  ;  after  that  you  can  ex- 
amine all  these  doctrines  as  much  as  you  please.'  " 
There  is  nothing  extraordinary  in  this  ;  many  a  minis- 
ter has  made  substantially  the  same  reply  to  inquirers. 
What  is  peculiar  is  that  Plymouth  Church  believes  this 


280  HENRY  WAED  BEECHER. 

doctrine  and  embodies  it  in  its  cliurcli  life.  It  pre- 
scribes no  other  condition  of  membersMp  in  its  school 
of  Christ  than  the  humble,  lowly,  and  docile  spirit  of 
a  discij)le. 

Such  is  Plymouth  Church  :  a  great  audience  gath- 
ered on  the  Sabbath  for  worship  and  instruction,  but 
rather  for  instruction  than  for  worship  ;  a  smaller  con- 
gregation, but  still  a  large  one,  gathered  weekly  on  Fri- 
day evenings  for  worship,  for  Christian  intercourse  and 
for  instruction,  but  rather  for  instruction  than  for  in- 
tercourse, and  rather  for  intercourse  than  for  worship  ; 
but  it  is  also  a  vital  working  force  of  Christian  disciples, 
bound  to  their  church  by  many  a  sacred  association  in 
connection  with  it,  and  bound  to  their  work  by  warm 
human  sympathy,  real  philanthropic  enthusiasm,  and 
a  loyalty  of  love  for  a  personal  Saviour.  When  the 
teacher  dies  Plymouth  Church  must  undergo  some 
great  changes  ;  but  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to 
think  that  the  church  will  die.  The  Sabbath  audiences 
may  and  probably  will  fall  off  to  the  dimensions  of  an 
average  Sabbath  congregation  ;  the  Friday  evening 
meeting  may  suffer  a  still  more  serious  diminution,  and 
become  an  ordinary  prayer  and  conference  meeting  ; 
but  the  worMng  body  which  forms  to-day  the  heart  of 
Plymouth  Church  will  not  lose  its  head,  nor  abate  its 
sympathies,  nor  slacken  in  its  enthusiasm,  nor  prove 
unfaithful  in  the  loyalty  of  its  love  to  its  Saviour.  For 
whatever  may  have  been  true  in  the  j)ast,  to-day  the 
true,  the  inner,  the  working  Plymouth  Church  is  held 
together  not  merely  by  a  personal  love  for  Mr.  Beecher, 
but  yet  more  by  a  x^ardonable  pride  in  the  church,  a 
common  sympathy  in  Christian  word  and  work,  and 


CHRISTIAN  ENTHUSIASM  IMMORTAL.  281 

above  all  by  a  genuine  Christian  enthusiasm  in  its 
Christian  work.  Such  an  enthusiasm  is  immortal.  It 
never  dies  in  the  death  of  the  man  by  whom  it  has 
been  inspired.* 

*  For  a  statistical  statement  as  to  Plymouth  Church  and  its  work,  see 
Appendix. 


Paet  II. 


WORDS  FROM  MANY  WITNESSES. 


The  letters  which  follow^  from  a  nurriber  of  emi- 
nent clergymen  and  laymen^  have  been  written  hy 
request^  and  furnish  accounts^  some  of  them  of 
incidents  in  Mr.  Beechefs  life,  others  of  special 
aspects  of  his  character  as  viewed  hy  the  respective 
writers.  They  are  in  all  cases  published  in  full 
and  without  alteration.  They  might  have  been 
easily  indefinitely  multiplied  but  for  want  of  space. 

The  reprints  from  periodicals,  following  the 
letters,  are  published  with  the  consent  of  the 
authors,  with  one  or  two  exceptions  where  com- 
munication with  the  writer  was  not  practicable. 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 


PART   II. 

ANALYSES    OF    HIS    POWER,   AND    EEMINIS- 
CENCES  BY   CONTEMPORARIES. 


I. 
By  THOMAS  ARMITAGE,  D.D., 

Pastor  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Baptist  Church,  New  York. 

No  one  honors  Henry  Ward  Beecher  more,  or  can  speak 
freely  of  him  with  less  misgiving,  than  I.  It  seems  desirable, 
after  the  frightful  afflictions  through  which  he  has  passed,  and  the 
obloquy  to  which  he  has  risen  superior,  that  in  his  lifetime  he 
should  have  the  pleasure  of  knowing  that  some  of  his  brethren 
appreciate  him  at  his  real  worth.  All  his  attributes  of  greatness 
and  goodness  will,  I  am  persuaded,  be  readily  discovered  when  he 
is  dead  ;  for  justice  must  be  done  some  time,  and  will  be  pro- 
claimed without  restraint  by  many  who  do  not  even  suspect  their 
existence  now.  But  those  who  have  already  made  that  discovery 
need  scarcely  wait  for  his  "  sepulchre"  as  the  fittest  time  for  its 
avowal.  They  have  not  "stoned"  him  on  his  way  thither; 
hence  they  may  gracefully  leave  to  those  who  have  the  rightful 
inheritance  of  "  garnishing"  his  tomb  when  he  is  comfortably 
dead,  and  can  draw  no  solace  from  posthumous  devotion. 

Mr.  Beecher  became  the  pastor  of  Plymouth  Church  two  months 
before  my  own  pastorate  began  in  New  York,  and  as  his  life  has 


286  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

been  an  open  book,  I  bave  known  bim  for  above  tbree-and-tbirty 
years,  not  in  tbe  most  familiar  intimacy,  but  better  tban  one  pas- 
tor commonly  knows  anotber,  and  witb  an  intelligent  friendsbip 
wbicb  bas  never  flagged  for  a  day.  We  bave  seen  many  public 
objects  and  interests  in  a  common  ligbt,  and  pursued  tbem  in 
close  sympatby  ;  wbile  in  otbers  we  bave  avowed  tbose  bonest 
differences  wbicb  bold  true  men  firmly  in  eacb  otber's  esteem. 
Wbo  can  forget  bis  ardent  and  far-sigbted  patriotism  in  tbe  en- 
mities, strifes,  and  batreds  of  our  civil  war  ?  For  bis  country 
bas  passed  tbrougb  no  trial  witbout  enlisting  all  bis  powers  for 
its  vindication,  bonor,  and  rescue.  As  tbe  narrow  bitterness  of 
those  times  pass  away,  men  begin  to  see  tbat  bis  life  bas  been 
full  of  cbarity,  of  tenderness,  justice,  and  trutb.  Spots  and  blem- 
ishes migbt  be  found,  even  in  a  life  so  true  and  inspiring,  but 
tbese  must  be  left  as  gleanings  for  tbe  gratification  of  tbat  pug- 
nacity wbicb  bas  dogged  bis  acts  and  virtues  relentlessly  at  every 
step,  do  wbat  be  would.  His  prominence  and  influence  in  politi- 
cal controversy  pushed  him  to  tbe  front  of  tbe  strife,  and  because 
bis  powers  were  mighty,  bis  pen  and  tongue  were  sharp,  incisive, 
and  overwhelming,  making  his  opponents  Avince,  and  at  times 
galling  them  unpardonably.  But  to  bis  immortal  bonor  it  must 
be  said  tbat  a  fascinating  humor  and  tbe  sunshine  of  good  nature 
bave  softened  bis  sharpest  contentions,  rendering  it  impossible  for 
bim  to  vulgarly  bound  down  any  man  on  a  blind  outcry.  His 
name  will  be  interwoven  witb  the  fortunes  of  bis  country,  as  one 
of  its  foremost  men.  His  healthful  patriotic  positions  will  live  in 
influence  when  be  is  dead,  for  bis  memory  is  no  small  gain  to 
humanity,  so  tbat  be  can  afford  to  endure  scorn  and  hate  while 
be  lives,  if  true  Americans  shall  see  in  him  tbe  noble  citizen  and 
real  brother  when  party  mists  bave  cleared  away  forever.  His 
marvellous  humanity,  bis  great-souled  pleas  for  his  country,  and 
his  universal  cbarity  can  never  be  forgotten  wbile  there  are  Ameri- 
can tongues  to  speak  and  pens  to  write. 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.     287 

Many  hallowed  memories  are  awakened  within  me  as  I  re- 
member that  out  of  about  four  hundred  pastors  who  were  in 
this  city  and  Brooklyn  when  Mr.  Beecher  came  here,  there  are 
not  more  than  half  a  dozen  who  are  still  active  in  the  same 
pastorates.  And  the  great  secular  minds  who  then  controlled 
the  thought  and  action  of  the  city  and  the  nation  have  also 
given  place  to  their  successors.  Through  all  these  changes  he 
has  been  spared  ;  and,  excepting  that  he  is  more  gigantic  in  his 
attainments,  influence,  and  effectiveness,  he  is  the  same  grand, 
genial,  manly  man  that  he  ever  has  been,  both  in  the  pulpit  and 
out,  and  is  still  bent  upon  accomplishing  the  great  work  of  his 
life,  knit  by  every  delicate  tie  which  binds  him  to  his  own  devout 
people  stronger  than  ever. 

The  chief  difficulty  of  saying  what  one  wishes  to  say  concerning 
Mr.  Beecher  within  reasonable  limits  arises  out  of  his  many-sided 
character  and  powers,  forming  a  most  symmetrical  unit  both  in 
heart  and  head.  Last  summer  I  entered  the  neat  cottage  of  an 
intelligent  mechanic  in  the  heart  of  Yorkshire,  and  found  him 
quite  enthusiastic  over  one  of  Mr.  Beecher' s  weekly  sermons. 
Seizing  the  opportunity  to  draw  out  a  disinterested  opinion  in  such 
a  place,  and  from  such  a  man,  I  asked  him  hruskly  why  he  spent 
his  precious  time  in  reading  "  that  fellow's  sermons,"  ini^tead  of 
Liddon's  and  Stanley's  and  Spurgeon's,  which  were  published  in 
the  same  periodical  ?  He  replied  like  a  philosopher  :  "  Ah,  sir, 
I  read  those  too  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  great  object  of  Mr. 
Beecher's  life  is  the  upbuilding  of  man,  and  I  always  read  his 
the  first,  for  I  think  him  the  greatest  preacher  living.  "  I  felt  that 
the  honest  and  devout  mechanic  had  gone  to  the  very  core  of  his 
ministry  and  life  at  a  bound.  As  a  representative  leader  in  human 
progress  the  American  divine  gave  up  his  whole  being  from  the 
first  to  the  aim  of  making  man  more  pure,  more  beautiful,  and 
more  happy.  No  man  can  aim  higher,  and  for  this  purpose  God 
has  wonderfully  endowed  him  with  all  the  requisite  qualities  found 
18 


288  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

in  a  vigorous,  keen,  versatile  intellect,  and  a  glorious  heart.  By 
these  he  has  honestly  battled  for  the  rights  of  man  ;  being  ever 
ready  to  defend  the  weak,  and  to  claim  that  freedom  for  others 
which  he  enjoyed  himself,  despite  all  the  bitterness  of  fierce,  cruel, 
and  slanderous  speech.  Pre-eminently  a  man  of  progressive 
thought  and  action,  he  has  resisted  all  temptation  to  turn  aside  or 
to  tone  down  his  demands,  much  less  to  silence  ;  bending  his  whole 
force  toward  the  improvement  of  mankind,  seeking  that  perfection 
by  progress  in  the  future  which  men  have  not  found  in  the  past. 
Life  has  had  for  him  a  deep  seriousness,  which  he  has  expressed  in 
clos6  contact  with  the  great  events  and  men  of  his  times  ;  so  that 
in  turn  he  has  inspired  and  been  inspired  by  reformers,  heroes, 
statesmen,  scholars,  artists,  poets,  sages,  handicraftsmen,  slaves 
and  saints,  in  the  general  contribution  to  human  advancement. 
Yet  his  name  is  not  the  echo  of  any  man's  voice,  but  is  a  great, 
distJTict,  and  fruitful  nature. 

But  wide  as  his  work  has  been  in  the  spheres  of  patriotism  and 
philanthropy,  his  distinguishing  glory  is  seen  in  his  greatness  as  a 
preacher.  Power  in  the  pulpit  is  felt  so  differently  upon  different 
minds,  that  no  two  would  award  the  same  position  relatively  to 
the  same  man.  But  taking  all  things  into  the  account,  I  have  no 
reluctance  whatever  in  according  to  Mr.  Beecher  the  first  place 
among  the  preachers  of  the  world  to-day.  What  little  I  know  of 
preaching  and  preachers  compels  this  avowal  in  all  honesty,  as  I  am 
convinced  that  his  ministry  has  sent  forth  a  moulding  voice  and 
influence  which  have  given  new  tones  of  health,  ardor,  and  life  to 
thousands  in  the  pulpit.  Having  consecrated  his  high  powers  to 
the  elucidation  and  enforcement  of  the  grandest  themes  of  prac- 
tical and  experimental  import  for  a  full  generation,  and  done  this 
in  a  way  that  was  never  properly  attempted  before,  it  is  no  won- 
der that  humdrum  prosiness,  dignified  tediousness,  and  profitless 
speculation  should  have  given  place  among  us  to  the  spirited, 
forceful,  and  profitable  pulpit  address  of  to-day.     It  is  said  of  the 


» 


AI^ALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      291 

late  Dean  of  Westminster  that  he  was  the  enthusiastic  and  brilliant 
scholar  of  his  noble  tutor  Arnold,  and  that  he  establisbed  the 
school  that  his  master  created.  But  Mr.  Beecher  is  his  own  orig- 
inal, he  is  a  copy  of  no  model  in  modern  times.  His  sermons'^ 
exhibit  a  larger  reading  of  human  nature,  a  broader  use  of  philo- 
sophical inquiry,  a  fresher  application  of  gospel  truths,  a  clearer 
induction  of  common-sense,  and  a  more  independent  rectitude, 
than  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  any  modern  preacher,  enstamping  his 
sermons  with  a  vehement  individuality  which  amounts  to  a  new 
creation  in  that  line.  His  subjects  sweep  the  whole  sphere  of 
truth,  being  endless  in  their  variety,  and  become,  year  by  year, 
fuller,  broader,  and  richer,  as  if  the  supply  were  inexhaustible. 
Equally  at  home  on  all  subjects  whicb  he  chooses,  he  is  ever  lucid 
in  his  treatment,  and  bracing  to  the  tired  and  flagging  sons  of  men. 
He  leaves  nothing  of  consequence  to  the  perfection  of  a  discourse 
undone,  but  draws  upon  boundless  stores  of  thought,  language,  and 
illustration,  and  utters  them  with  the  ardor  of  an  old  prophet,  now 
in  withering  indignation  at  wrong,  and  then  with  an  affectionate 
kindliness  and  beauty  which  always  kindles  at  the  right.  Never 
unprepared,  he  commands  all  the  members  of  his  subject  at  will, 
working  up  to  his  own  standard  as  an  accomplished  master  of  his 
work,  which  gives  freshness  and  vigor  to  all  that  he  says.  These 
abilities,  with  his  fine  voice,  commanding  presence,  and  burn- 
ing love  of  man,  make  his  word  powerful  indeed.  As  years  roll 
on,  his  sermons  become  more  and  more  high-toned  in  spirit, 
fresher  in  tenderness,  and  more  elevating  in  effect.  They  evince 
a  broader  culture,  a  deeper  reverence  for  God,  a  simpler  faith  in 
Christ,  a  purer  spirituality  of  feeling,  and  a  softer  earnestness  than 
ever.  As  is  natural,  these  elements  overbear  every  approach  to 
parade,  either  of  learning  or  profundity,  and  to  a  large  degree 
repress  the  critical  faculty  in  favor  of  the  appeal. 

That  knowledge  of  anatomy,  character,  and  color  which  a  great 
painter  like  Da  Vinci  evinces  in  drawing  the  human  face,  Mr. 


293  HENRY   WARD    BEECHER 

Beecher  applies  after  liis  order  in  depicting  the  inner  life  of  man. 
Da  Vinci's  higli  cultivation  and  triumphant  reign  in  art  have 
enriched  its  whole  realm,  as  few  have  enhanced  its  wealth.  The 
richest  gifts  of  Heaven  were  bestowed  upon  him.  They  made  him 
the  miracle  of  his  age,  forming  the  chemist,  the  musician,  the 
thinker,  the  poet,  and  the  painter,  rendering  hira  the  founder  of 
the  Lombard  school,  and  controlling  the  art  world  to  the  close  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  That  school  blended  the  opposites  of 
minuteness  in  detail  with  the  grandest  sublimity.  In  the  land- 
scapes of  this  master  every  leaf  is  taken  from  nature,  and  in  his 
heads  all  is  perfect.  The  hue  of  the  skin,  the  throb  of  the 
arteries,  the  light  of  the  eyes,  and  every  accessory  tint  is  there,  as 
well  as  the  poise  of  the  body  and  the  grace  of  the  limb.  And,  as 
his  great  powers  make  his  name  the  first  among  the  painters  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  so,  I  think,  will  Mr.  Beecher's  rank  him  among 
the  preachers  of  the  nineteenth.  Ilis  persecution  has  been  one  of 
the  most  wicked  and  infamous  pieces  of  abuse  since  the  crusade 
against  Wesley  and  Whitefield  ;  as  near  as  may  be,  a  crucifixion. 
Its  virulence  has  been  terrible — truth  seems  at  times  to  have  fallen 
in  the  streets  and  reproach  made  her  robes  foul ;  but  worse  than 
all,  the  attempt  was  made  to  justify  the  outrage  in  the  pure  and 
loving  name  of  Christ.  From  the  opening  of  his  ministry,  the 
sword  was  drawn  upon  him  and  the  scabbard  cast  away,  not  need- 
lessly, for  his  foes  discovered  in  him  the  metal  which  would  de- 
mand their  attention  till  he' died.  But  his  sufferings  have  quick- 
ened and  inspired  his  intellect,  his  acute  distress  has  vitalized  his 
courage,  and  his  very  wounds  have  thrown  him  back  upon  his 
moral  perceptions  and  hope.  Great  preachers,  like  other  great 
men,  are  of  but  little  service  to  their  race  until  they  have  suffered 
much  with  and  for  their  Lord. 

Many  who  never  foully  aspersed  Mr,  Beecher  nor  cast  reproach 
upon  his  fame,  have  still  felt  sad  misgivings  concerning  him  on 
the  grounds  of  alleged  unsoundness  in  his  views  of  theological 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      293 

truth.  On  a  number  of  points  in  theology  I  differ  with  Mr. 
Beecher  widely.  But  as  a  theologian  I  cannot  measure  him  by 
any  given  scholastic  standard,  because  he  regards  all  such  tests  as 
the  formulas  of  imperfect  minds,  and  rightly  too.  As  a  rule  these 
standards  were  largely  the  culmination  and  outcome  of  controver- 
sies which  had  been  long  rife,  concerning  which  the  newly- 
announced  creed  settled  nothing.  I  should  suppose  that  he 
claimed  the  right,  with  the  authors  of  the  various  creeds  them- 
selves, to  draw  much  of  his  theology  out  of  his  own  inner  life,  as 
he  believes  it  to  be  nourished  by  his  own  religious  thought  and 
feeling.  At  any  rate,  no  observing  man  can  listen  to  his  teach- 
ings, but  especially  to  his  prayers,  Avithout  the  persuasion  that  his 
heart  offerings  rise  from  a  golden  censer  having  much  frankincense 
from  God  and  myrrh  from  man.  His  theology  is  drawn  largely 
out  of  the  recesses  of  his  own  soul,  but  chiefly  out  of  the  facts  of 
our  Lord's  life,  as  found  in  the  sacred  narratives  ;  so  that  he  relies 
more  on  living  sympathy  for  soul-solace  than  on  any  or  all  the 
formulated  Christian  dogmas.  He  seems  to  sum  up  his  theology 
in  the  thought  that  Jesus  Christ  is  man's  friend  in  all  his  needs 
and  under  all  circumstances,  both  in  this  world  and  that  which  is 
to  come.  This  is  world-truth  and  not  class-truth,  the  soul  of 
divinity  without  the  body,  rather  than  the  body  without  the  soul. 
His  principal  difference  from  most  of  us  is  found  in  that  freedom 
which  interprets  Christ  differently  from  us.  And  who  of  us  is 
willing  to  be  bound  down  hand  and  foot  by  the  old,  uninspired 
standards,  in  all  things,  great  and  small  ?  We  yearn  after  a  gen- 
erous gospel  lovableness — a  broad,  fearless,  and  bright  humanity, 
which  touches  and  sanctifies  all  healthful  social  interests  and  call- 
ings, all  aims  and  efforts  of  humanity  ;  enlightening  its  fears, 
exciting  its  hopes,  and  warming  its  love.  Nothing  which  con- 
cerns the  real  welfare  of  man  is  foreign  to  the  gospel  ;  therefore, 
everything  that  is  beautiful,  pure,  and  true  belongs  to  Christ,  and 
so  Christ's  life  bears  upon   all  human  benediction,  whether  men 


294  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

have  covered  it  by  avowed  dogma  or  not.  Possibly  Mr.  Beecher 
does  not  wish  to  be  accounted  a  theologian,  as  some  men  use  that 
term.  Baldwin  Brown  recently  said  :  "  The  most  inhuman  of 
the  sciences  in  all  ages  has  been  theology  ;  some  of  the  most 
inhuman  men  that  have  ever  lived  have  been  divines  and  rulers  of 
the  church."  All  that  order  of  notoriety  Mr.  Beecher  would 
surely  deprecate,  but  would  covet  theology  as  a  divine  science  and 
life  ;  a  living  reality  indeed,  without  its  narrow  words  and  defini- 
tions, as  they  bristle  with  technicalities  which  the  Scriptures  and 
simple-hearted  people  know  nothing  about,  and  which  make  it  a 
mere  mummy  to  enwrap  and  entomb  the  truth,  instead  of  a  living 
temple  where  it  may  be  enshrined.  For  this  arrogant,  intolerant, 
and  unlovable  theology,  Mr.  Beecher  cherishes  but  contempt,  and 
by  no  means  stands  alone.  Bat  for  that  which  glows  with  love 
for  God  and  light  for  man,  his  heart  has  always  extended  a  warm 
welcome.  In  promoting  that  wisdom  which  is  pure,  peaceable, 
full  of  mercy  and  good  fruits,  his  theology  has  been  positive 
enough,  while  in  the  pedantic  and  cynical  it  has  been  decidedly 
negative.  In  other  words,  behind  his  theology  has  always  stood 
the  firm,  true,  brave  man  ;  cool,  self-poised,  and  self-possessed, 
yet  as  sensitive  as  a  child.  At  times  the  sanctimonious  in  the- 
ology has  evoked  in  him  a  keen,  quiet  sarcasm,  never  bitter  but 
always  pungent,  and  as  much  the  overflow  of  affection  as  his  tears, 
while  its  real  sanctity  has  intensified  and  mellowed  his  courage 
and  life. 

Both  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching  and  general  religious  views  have 
provoked  much  criticism,  because  of  their  highly  emotional  char- 
acter. This  criticism  would  carry  the  greater  weight  if  he 
evinced  a  relative  forgetfulness  of  deep  and  abiding  principle  in 
his  teaching.  A  fair  mind  must  take  in  all  sides  of  his  ministr}^ 
in  order  to  a  right  and  comprehensive  judgment  here.  Certainly 
he  perpetually  insists  upon  honesty,  justice,  truth,  integrity  and 
equality,    not   as    matters   of    feeling,    but    on    principle.      Most 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      295 

earnestly  he  treats  of  God  and  man,  of  human  weakness  and  divine 
energy,  of  God's  law  and  man's  obedience,  all  of  which  must  lead 
to  right  thinking  and  action,  promoting  good  will  to  men  with 
love  to  God.  He  regards  it  possible  to  reach  thorough  Christian 
character  only  after  long  and  patient  toil  ;  transient  and  impas- 
sioned effort  cannot  attain  thereto.  He  teaches  that  the  perma- 
nent and  radical  cure  of  man's  moral  nature  is  effected  slowly  and 
not  suddenly,  much  as  a  confirmed  invalid  is  restored.  The  only 
efficient  remedy  is  seen  in  a  steady  abstinence  from  all  wrong- 
doing, God-ward  and  man-ward,  coupled  with  constant  obedience 
to  the  law  of  God  ;  these  are  his  proofs  that  a  man  is  truly 
healed.  Still,  coexistent  with  this  teaching,  he  refuses  to  be  blind 
to  the  fact  that  God  has  endowed  man  with  those  potent  emotions 
and  passions  which,  in  the  nature  of  things,  link  themselves  to  all 
his  other  religious  attributes.  Not  long  since  a  New  York  daily, 
in  reporting  one  of  Mr.  Beecher's  sermons,  on  "  The  Love  of\ 
God,"  remarked  that  :  "  He  is  nothing  when  he  does  not  treat/ 
of  love."  Well,  what  would  Jesus  his  Master  be  but  for  his 
love  ?  Doubtless  it  is  true  that  where  the  will  and  moral  faculties 
are  weak  and  the  animal  nature  controls  them,  great  peril  impends, 
for  there,  supposed  seraphic  feelings  may  lead  their  victim  to 
iniquity,  and  the  purest  affection  Avill  become  debauched.  Hence 
we  have  cases  where  the  refined,  loving,  and  sincere  fall  into  gross 
sin  from  a  superabounding  emotion  in  religion.  Not  only  are 
proper  guards  against  this  tendency  found  in  the  exacting  ethics 
of  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching,  but  a  second  preventive  centres  in  the 
whole  tone  and  animus  of  his  ministry,  which  draws  upon  the 
whole  sphere  of  pure  and  healthful  nature  for  its  staple  and  life. 
He  ever  finds  elevating  companionships  in  flowers,  fruits,  birds, 
trees,  music,  poetry,  and  exalted  mental  sentiment.  Music  in 
nature  floats  through  and  refreshes  his  soul  like  breezes  from  the 
everlasting  hills.  An  elevated  lyric  is  as  welcome  to  him  as  the 
pulsations  of  new  life.      And  the  poetry  of  a  noble  action  lights 


296  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

up  in  him  a  deep  of  Christian  experience  and  truth.  All  these 
shape  and  feed  his  utterances  in  argument,  picture,  parable,  and 
incentive,  till  his  productions  abound  with  the  signs  and  influences 
of  an  intense  life  in  himself,  and  that  of  a  wholesome  and  natural 
order.  And,  of  course,  all  who  prize  such  life — the  child,  the 
youth,  and  the  man  of  maturity — become  impressed  with  his  own 
nobility  and  take  up  his  convictions  and  impulses  into  their  own 
nature,  to  cheer  and  enliven  them  by  making  a  Christian  life  a 
reality,  to  be  roundly  lived  in  real  men  and  women.  Religious 
emotion  so  excited  cannot  be  unhealthy,  but  must  be  stable,  open- 
hearted,  quickening,  and  winsome.  It  may  contain  something  of 
a  woman's  softness,  but  it  must  be  firm  and  intellectual,  because  it 
recognizes  vitalizing  life  in  everything  and  finds  it  everywhere. 

In  a  great  and  grand  sense  it  may  be  said  that  Mr.  Beecher 
"has  served  his  generation  by  the  will  of  God."  He  has  not 
merely  "  filled  his  place."  There  is  all  conceivable  difference 
between  a  man  filling  his  place  and  "  serving  his  generation."  To 
fill  his  place  requires  a  body,  but  to  serve  his  generation  by  the 
will  of  God  demands  a  soul — a  soul  measured  by  the  imperious 
mandates  of  time  and  the  outreaching  behests  of  influence.  To 
a  man  who  has  no  convictions,  no  fidelities,  no  fixed  aims,  the 
grave  is  but  the  cell  of  a  condemned  wrong-doer,  but  on  the  time- 
filling  and  influence-creating  man  its  ashes  will  shed  new  beauty. 
Mr.  Beecher  will  be  better  understood  in  coming  generations  than 
in  this,  for  now,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  universality  of  his  work 
hides  his  universal  success.  Many  admire  him  to-day,  but  all  will 
be  poorer  when  he  finishes  his  work.  Often  men  make  a  pretence 
of  admiration  over  one  who  dares  to  think  for  himself  and  to  say 
what  he  thinks,  even  if  they  cannot  grapple  with  his  conclusions 
or  comprehend  his  methods  of  reaching  them.  But  during  his 
lifetime  they  never  forgive  him  for  his  boldness  and  originality. 
He  may  be  as  free  from  rancor  as  Nathanael  was  free  of  guile  ; 
the   very  soul   of  a  noble   life,  without  meanness,   never  having 


\ 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      297 

injured  any  man.  But  all  that  does  not  shield  him  from  blows 
which  agonize  a  bleeding  heart.  If  he  blesses  his  race  and  pays 
the  stipulated  price  for  the  privilege — if  he  is  free,  merciful,  and 
catholic,  hosts  will  rise  up  against  him,  as  the  great  Brooklyn 
divine  knows  by  all  his  bitterness  of  grief.  Yet  may  he  soothe 
his  last  years,  as  Garfield  soothed  his  last  days,  with  the  thought 
which  is  ever  sweet  to  man,  that  his  name,  his  influence,  and  his 
work  will  pass  into  history  and  unborn  generations  will  call  him 
blessed. 


II. 

By   JOSEPH   PARKER,    D.D., 

Pastor  of  the  City  Temple,  London,  England. 

I  FEEL  some  difficulty  in  speaking  about  a  man  who  has  laid  so 
deep  a  hold  on  my  affections,  because  terms  which  are  mere  com- 
monplaces in  the  atmosphere  of  my  love  must  seem  to  be  exagger- 
ations of  the  most  daring  kind  to  persons  who  suppose  themselves 
to  be  unprejudiced  simply  because  they  are  uninformed.  The 
first  object  that  strikes  me,  in  my  dining-room,  is  Mr.  Beecher  ; 
the  first  object  that  strikes  me  in  my  drawing-room  is  Mr.  Beecher  ; 
the  man  who  occupies  the  largest  space  in  my  albums  is  Mr. 
Beecher  ;  the  man  whose  letters  we  reread  to  ourselves  and  to 
our  friends  is  Mr.  Beecher  ;  it  is  just  possible,  therefore,  that  per- 
sons who  know  nothing  at  all  about  him  may  accuse  me  of 
approaching  my  work  with  more  or  less  of  partiality. 

I  first  met  Mr.  Beecher  during  his  visit  to  Manchester  at  the 
time  of  the  American  Civil  War.  An  immense  meeting  flooded 
the  Free  Trade  Iiall.  The  greatest  expectation  had  long  been 
raised,  so  great,  indeed,  as  to  become  a  practical  injustice  to  any 
public  man,   and  now  it  was  at  its  supreme  point.     When  Mr. 


398  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Beecher  appeared  the  scene  baffled  description  ;  the  cheering, 
stamping,  clapping,  shouting,  and  partial  groaning,  made  the  hall 
shake  again.  Mr.  Beecher  rose  to  speak,  but  the  audience  must 
needs  cheer  ;  once  more  he  got  to  "  Mr.  Chairman,"  and  once 
more  the  cheers  rang  out  in  wild  and  all  but  unanimous  harmony. 
Mr,  Beecher  quickly  caught  the  groans  and  hisses  of  a  clique  at 
the  far  end  of  the  hall,  and  intuitively  seizing  the  temper  of  his 
audience  he  laid  aside  his  elaborate  manuscript  and  went  right  at 
his  work.  For  something  like  two  hours  he  went  on,  making  his 
triumphant  but  far  from  uninterrupted  way  through  facts,  statistics, 
policies,  and  arguments,  without  so  much  as  referring  to  a  memo- 
randum. As  an  effort  of  memory,  as  an  effort  of  the  voice,  and 
as «.  miracle  of  wisdom  and  good-nature,  I  never  heard  the  equal 
of  that  massive  and  overwhelming  oration.  From  that  moment 
we  knew,  the  greatness  of  the  cause,  and  we  felt  that  its  advocacy 
was  in  the  strongest  possible  hands.  There  was  hfe  in  every  tone, 
so  much  so  indeed  that  the  whole  effort  seemed  to  be  part  of  the 
very  battle  which  it  described.  Truly,  it  was  no  amateur  elo- 
quence ;  it  was  no  attempt  at  scene-painting  ;  it  was  a  fight,  a 
heroic  onslaught,  and,  from  my  point  of  view,  a  victorious  assault 
at  arms.  I  afterward  met  Mr.  Beecher  at  a  public  breakfast  and 
heard  his  reply  to  a  congratulatory  resolution,  which  was  much 
like  seeing  Niagara  two  miles  below  the  Falls.  The  next  time  I 
heard  Mr.  Beecher  was  at  the  Evangelical  Alliance  at  New  York. 
His  subject  was  The  Pulpit  and  the  Age.  Dr.  Kidder  and  myself 
spoke  on  the  same  occasion,  and  on  the  same  topic.  Mr.  Beecher 
had  nothing  before  him  but  the  briefest  notes,  yet  for  the  greater 
part  of  an  hour  he  poured  forth  a  most  copious  stream  of  eloquence 
with  an  ease  which  could  only  be  realized  by  life-long  experience 
and  use.  The  address  summed  up  the  lessons  of  a  lifetime.  I 
have  often  described  Mr.  Beecher' s  face  as  being  on  that  occasion 
the  very  type  of  an  April  day,  for  the  smiles  shone  through  the 
tears,  and  a  subtle  humor  edged  the  most  solemn  thinking  as  a 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      299 

ring  of  light  often  engirdles  the  most  sombre  of  clouds.  The 
whole  genius  of  Mr.  Beecher's  own  preaching  was  happily  illus- 
trated by  that  many-phased  address  ;  there  was  a  line  of  deep 
clear  thinking  from  end  to  end,  again  and  again  there  was  a  figure 
which  shone  like  a  planet,  in  a  moment  there  was  a  touch  of 
humor  not  at  all  irreligious,  and  a  broad  human  sympathy  was 
expressed  in  tenderness  which  needed  and  secured  the  assistance 
of  tears.  The  address  was  not  something  about  preaching,  it  was 
itself  preaching  of  the  very  highest  order. 

Personally  I  have  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Beecher's  power  is  not  a 
little  enhanced  by  his  almost  unique  gift  of  language.  He  could 
fill  two  octavo  pages  with  the  description  of  a  cobweb,  and  yet 
there  would  be  much  more  than  mere  words  in  the  description. 
There  is  a  subtle  color  in  his  words,  so  that  they  mass  up  into 
very  striking  impressiveness,  however  poor  or  contracted  the  sub- 
ject itself  may  be.  Mr.  Beecher  would  be  as  unquotable  a  speaker 
as  Mr.  Gladstone  but  for  the  innumerable  figures  which  crowd  to 
his  help.  Mr.  Gladstone  has  no  rhetorical  imagination  ;  he 
expounds — unravels — and  anatomizes  his  subjects  with  a  precisioD 
and  fulness  truly  amazing,  and  with  an  eloquence  as  pellucid  as  it 
is  massive  and  forceful,  but  there  are  no  flowers,  no  figures,  no 
hints  of  an  infinite  background.  Mr.  Beecher  is  just  as  copious 
in  mere  language,  but  then  how  tropical  is  the  luxuriance  of  his 
imagination  !  When  he  concludes  it  is  rather  out  of  deference  to 
custom  or  convenience  than  because  the  subject  is  exhausted. 
My  sober  impression  is  that  Mr.  Beecher  could  preach  every  Sunday 
in  the  year  from  the  first  verse  in  Genesis,  without  giving  any  sign 
of  intellectual  exhaustion,  or  any  failure  of  imaginative  fire.  It  is 
in  religious  imagination — in  the  wonderful  apocalypse  of  the  heart 
— that  he  beats  us  all  and  leaves  us  panting  in  weakness  and  fear. 
Other  men  are  great  logicians  (if  it  is  possible  for  a  logician  to  be 
great),  but  they  are  caged  and  bounded  by  wires,  whereas  Mr. 
Beecher  is  as  a  bird  flying   in  the  open  firmament.      Is  he  not, 


300  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

.therefore,  logical  ?  The  more  so,  unquestionably  ;  the  more  so 
because  the  greater  includes  the  less,  and  parable  is  larger  and 
truer  than  fact.  Facts  may  have  all  the  effect  of  lies,  Mr. 
Beecher  uses  the  fact  as  a  starting-point,  or  as  the  ground  on 
which  he  rests  the  ladder  whose  head  reaches  high  as  heaven. 
The  text  is  as  a  handful  of  corn  on  the  top  of  the  mountains,  the 
sermon  is  as  the  fruit  thereof  shaking  like  Lebanon.  I  have 
seen  something  like  a  hundred  of  Mr.  Beecher's  notes  of  sermons 
to  be  used  by  him  in  the  pulpit,  and  I  have  sometimes  wished 
that  some  of  them  could  be  lithographed  and  published  along  with 
the  fully-reported  sermon  ;  what  a  contrast  would  then  be  reveal- 
ed !  For  a  few  lines  the  notes  and  sermon  go  together  with  toler- 
able evenness,  but  suddenly  the  sermon  bounds  away  from  the 
notes,  and  probably  never  returns  !  In  the  notes  you  may  meet 
an  occasional  etc.,  and  it  is  curious  to  turn  to  the  sermon  to  see 
how  much  was  wrapped  up  in  that  hieroglyphic  ;  a  whole  idyl, 
mayhap  ;  or  a  thunderstorm  ;  or  a  burial  service  broken  up  by 
the  resurrection.  In  such  instances  we  see  what  I  may  call  the 
riotous  povi^er  of  Mr.  Beecher's  imagination,  a  power  that  revels 
in  strength,  and  that  grows  in  wealth  by  giving  its  wealth  away. 
All  this  I  say,  as  a  mere  reader  of  Mr.  Beecher's  sermons  ;  I  never 
heard  Mr.  Beecher  preach ;  but  having  heard  him  on  the  plat- 
form, I  can  imagine  in  some  degree  what  he  must  be  in  his  in- 
spired moments  in  the  pulpit,  when  he  sees  heaven  opened  and  the 
Son  of  Man  standing  at  the  right  hand  of  God  ! 

Every  now  and  then  we  hear  that  Mr.  Beecher  has  changed  his 
theological  position,  or  that  he  has  modified  his  faith,  or  that  he 
has  been  struck  down  on  the  road  to  Damascus  and  seen  a  new 
glory  which  must  be  typified  in  new  words.  Let  no  man  be  mis- 
led by  such  gossip.  Mr.  Beecher  can  never  be  other  than  ortho- 
dox. A  heart  like  his  does  not  know  how  to  be  li.eretical.  Like 
all  persons  whom  it  is  fiot  in  the  power  of  time  to  make  old,  he 
is  always  seeing  a  new  specimen   of  butterflies,  a  new  instance  in 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      301 

botany,  a  new  tone  of  color  in  the  morning  or  evening  sky  ;  he 
is  always  coming  home  with  a  new  incident,  a  fresh  idea,  or  a 
bold  proposition  ;  but  knowing  that  he  sees  everything  through 
his  imagination,  or  passes  everything  through  the  zone  of  his 
affections,  and  that  in  his  nature  there  is  neither  suspicion  nor 
resentment,  we  may  be  perfectly  sure  that  at  the  last  as  at  the  first, 
Mr.  Beecher  will  be  found  at  the  Cross,  saying,  as  few  others  can 
say,  that  there  is  no  name  given  under  heaven  among  men,  but 
Christ's  own,  whereby  men  can  be  saved.  Mr.  Beecher  can  never 
accept  a  four-cornered  theology,  and  personally  I  thank  God  that 
he  cannot.  A  four-cornered  theology  is  the  greatest  hindrance  I 
know  of  to  the  spread  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  There  are 
people  who  know  where  theology  begins,  where  it  ends,  through 
what  lines  it  passes,  what  particulars  it  includes,  and  how  neatly 
it  gathers  into  itself  themselves  and  their  particular  families.  They 
think  that  to  allow  a  simicolon  in  the  Bible  is  to  imperil  the  doc- 
trine of  inspiration,  and  to  see  any  good  in  another  Christian 
communion  is  to  hobnob  with  the  enemy  of  souls  and  to  enter 
upon  a  course  of  dangerous  compromise.  Mr.  Beecher  accepts  no 
such  detestable  opinion,  and  his  revolt  from  it  is  often  expressed 
in  terras  which  to  literal  minds  must  sound  like  blasphemy. 

To  the  same  literal  minds — Heaven  pity  them — Mr.  Beecher 
sometimes  figures  as  "an  imprudent  man."  We  often  hear  this 
in  certain  English  circles.  From  my  point  of  view  there  is 
nothing  that  is  not  of  a  vicious  kind  to  be  much  more  deplored 
than  a  narrow  prudence.  Imprudence  is  sometimes  the  highest 
wisdom,  as  it  certainly  is  often  the  noblest  unselfishness.  Such 
is  the  supposed  imprudence  of  Mr.  Beecher.  If  he  had  been 
more  selfish,  he  would  have  been  more  prudent ;  being  wholly  un- 
selfish, he  has  been  apparently  imprudent.  I  know  many  six- 
inch-long  souls  who  are  living  in  comfortable  obscurity  because 
they  calculate  the  possible  effect  of  every  action,  and  are  afraid 
that  if  they  did  anything  unusual  they  would  disturb  the  universe. 


302  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

To  such  persons  what  a  miracle  of  imprudence  Mr.  Beecher  must 
appear  !  But  to  such  persons  we  must  not  appeal  for  just  judg- 
ment. They  do  not  know  the  larger  truth,  and,  therefore,  they 
have  not  entered  into  the  larger  freedom.  Mr.  Beecher  must  be 
judged  by  other  minds,  and  especially  must  be  judged  by 
another  generation  ;  in  half  a  century  after  his  death  the  children 
of  his  persecutors  will  build  and  dect  his  tomb.  I  feel  how 
inadequate  are  these  few  sentences,  yet  in  writing  them  rather 
than  allowing  the  opportunity  to  lapse,  I  feel  that  I  am  accepting 
an  honor  at  the  hands  of  my  friends  the  editor  and  publishers  of 
this  memorial  volume.  As  to  Mr.  Beecher's  place  in  the  estima- 
tion of  British  Christians  I  believe  it  is  as  high  as  ever.  Here 
and  there,  as  I  have  said,  are  prudent  persons  to  whom  the  earth 
owes  nothing,  who  may  be  uncertain  about  him,  but  as  they  are 
uncertain  about  everything  else  it  really  does  not  matter  what  they 
think  about  Mr.  Beecher.  If  Mr.  Beecher  will  visit  England  he 
will  have  accorded  to  him  a  reception  which  will  show  that 
America  has  produced  one  of  the  greatest  oreachers  that  ever 
adorned  the  Christian  pulpit. 


III. 
By  CHARLES  E.  ROBINSON,  D.D., 

Of  Rochester,  New  York. 

Here  are  some  reminiscences  of  Mr.  Beecher,  "pro  or  con." 
The  subject  is  so  kaleidoscopic,  so  many-sided,  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  make  the  reflections  permanent.  If  you  could  fix  him  as 
the  photographer  arranges  one  for  a  picture,  fasten  his  head  in 
the  tongs  and  keep  him  in  one  position,  it  would  be  easier.  But 
when  you  secure  one  reflection,  the  expression  is  changed,  and 
you  are  ready  to  throw  away  your  first  impression. 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      303 

No  one  person  could  write  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher's  biography  ; 
hence  the  unique  book  which  his  children  have  given  us,  where 
we  catch  different  views  of  him,  as  artists  complete  their  ideas  of 
form  and  proportion.  It  will  be  harder  still  to  obtain  any 
satisfactory  picture  of  his  son,  Henry  Ward.  The  time  to  write 
his  life  has  not  yet  come.  A  dispassionate  judgment  of  him  can 
be  secured  only  in  a  succeeding  generation.  We  are  too  near  to 
get  the  proper  proportions.  We  are  now  too  much  affected  by 
our  strong  prejudices  or  preferences.  So  that  your  portfolio  is 
perhaps  the  only  way  in  which  the  present  impressions  can  be 
noted.  The  kind  of  letter  you  wish  from  me  leads  one  entirely 
into  personal  recollections.  I  suppose  that  that  is  just  what  you 
desire  to  know  ;  in  what  way  Mr.  Beecher  has  touched  my  life. 

His  brother,  George,  was  my  pastor  in  my  childhood,  and  I  can 
just  recall  a  "red-letter  day"  in  the  parish  when  Dr.  Lyman 
Beecher,  Dr.  Charles  Beecher,  and  Henry  Ward  all  preached  in 
the  morning,  afternoon,  and  evening.  But  the  first  distinct 
impression  which  Henry  Ward  made  upon  me  was  in  the  P>e- 
mont  campaign,  that  inauguration  of  the  great  political  move- 
ment which  made  anti-slavery  principles  popular,  and  rallied  to 
its  standard  the  generous  enthusiasm  of  youth.  There  were  feat- 
ures of  that  campaign  which  one  loves  to  recall.  My  home  was 
in  a  Western  city.  I  was  to  decide  the  all-important  question,  to 
which  candidate  should  I  give  my  first  presidential  vote  ?  Mr. 
Beecher's  speeches  and  extracts  from  his  sermons  which  reached 
me  I  can  hardly  recall  here  ;  but  they  exerted  a  controlling  influ- 
ence over  that  decision,  appealing  to  my  intellect,  heart,  and 
conscience. 

I  was  particularly  attracted  by  the  generosity,  manliness,  and 
humanity  of  his  political  principles.  About  that  time  came  the 
great  revival  which  spread  through  the  whole  country.  Two 
noble  souls,  bound  to  me  by  ties  of  kindred  and  strong  affection, 
were  then  members  of  Plymouth  Church,  and  tlue   deepening  of 


304  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

tlieir  religious  life  under  the  preaching  of  their  pastor  made  a 
strong  impression  upon  me. 

"  Plymouth  Collection  "  had  just  then  appeared,  the  first,  and 
among  the  best  of  its  kind.  The  hymns  we  sang  from  that  book, 
the  echoes  from  those  daily  morning  prayer-meetings  in  the  lect- 
ure-room, which  reached  me,  through  correspondence  with  these 
friends,  the  snatches  of  "  Lecture-room  talks,"  sent  me,  in  the 
same  way,  long  before  they  were  regularly  reported  fot'  the  papers, 
awakening  and  confirming  my  own  Christian  hope*,  and  giving  a 
freshness  to  praise  and  prayer  which  were  new  to  me,  will 
explain  the  peculiar  aifection  which  grew  up  in  my  heart  for  Mr. 
Beecher,  although  at  that  time  I  had  never  met  him.  This  affec- 
tion, with  all  my  decided  dissent,  since  then,  from  his  philosophy 
and  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures,  has  never  wavered,  and  grew 
the  stronger  for  the  fiery  trial  through  which  he  was  called  to  pass. 

Then,  during  my  seminary  life,  Avhen  preachers  and  methods 
of  preaching  were  the  frequent  theme  of  review  or  discussion, 
Mr.  Beecher' s  sermons  began  to  reach  us  in  the  Independent.  At 
that  time  his — what  shall  I  call  it — Neo-Platonic  philosophy  ? 
if  adopted  by  him,  had  not  affected  his  doctrine,  so  that  Presby- 
terian theologues  were  not  so  much  struck  with  his  divergence 
from  the  generally  received  teachings  of  the  Evangelical  school  as 
with  the  lightning-like  flashes  of  thought  and  the  steady  glow  of 
warm  feeling  with  which  the  old  truths  were  illuminated.  The 
richness  of  his  vocabulary  was,  I  remember,  a  ceaseless  marvel  to 
us  boys.  He  has  contributed  to  the  wealth  of  our  language,  not 
only  by  showing  its  unlimited  capacities  for  varied  expression, 
but  by  the  coining  of  new  words.  But  those  Independent  sermons 
made  other  impressions  upon  us.  There  were  not  a  few  who  felt 
that  they  were  led  by  them  into  closer  fellowship  and  friendship 
with  Jesus.  Our  blessed  Lord  was  a  real  presence  to  him,  a 
Friend  to  confide  in,  and  a  Lover  to  adore.  I  own  freely  that  he 
has  added   in   this  way  greatly   to   the    wealth   of   my   personal 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      305 

experience  of  the  reality  of  things  unseen.  This  is  the  secret  or 
one  of  the  secrets  of  his  power  over  men,  and  the  remarkable 
warmth  and  vitality  of  his  preaching.  I  am  glad  to  have  this 
opportunity  of  paying  a  grateful  tribute  to  him  for  the  way  he 
led  me,  in  my  early  ministry,  to  a  "  closer  walk  with  God  ;"  a 
better  comprehension  of  the  inspiring,  sympathizing  friendship, 
which  it  is  the  privilege  of  every  Christian  to  cherish  for  his 
Master.  In  the  disappointments  and  the  successes  of  the  minis- 
try, in  the  trials  and  the  superabundant  joys,  this  has  been  to 
me  more  than  I  can  tell. 

The  garrulity  of  personal  reminiscence  carries  me  on  to  my 
first  pastorate  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  valleys  of  Litchfield 
county,  Connecticut.  Ruskin's  "  Modern  Painters"  was  my  vade- 
jnecum  just  then.  I  remember  hearing  Mr.  Beecher  tell  how 
much  that  book  had  disclosed  nature  to  him.  It  was  certainly  a 
benefit  which  he  transmitted  ;  for  the  exquisite  rural  beauty  of  that 
country  parish  was  as  much  revealed  to  me  by  his  summer  letters 
from  Lenox  as  by  Mr.  Ruskin.  Those  were  the  days  when 
* '  Aurora  Leigh, "  "  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese, ' '  and  Brown- 
ing's  "  Men  and  Women,"  were  almost  new. 

The  walks  under  the  grand  old  elms  of  Woodbury  or  the  hours 
on  the  banks  of  the  trout  streams  or  the  solitudes  on  Orenans: 
rocks  were  all  associated  with  friendly  communings  with  these 
authors.  And  I  remember  with  peculiar  pleasure  that  those 
letters  of  Mr.  Beecher's  from  Lenox  were  woven  in  with  the  other 
influences  which  lifted  me  into  a  greater  enjoyment  and  apprecia- 
tion of  the  country  life  about  me. 

The  drone  of  the  bee,  the  buzz  of  the  fly  in  the  lazy  summer 
air,  the  far-off  thud  of  the  threshing  flail,  the  soughing  of  the 
wind  in  the  pines  of  Orcnang,  Woodbury's  Pineta,  the  emerald 
dome  of  the  elms,  the  voiceful  silences  of  nature,  the  glory  of  the 
morning,  the  fervors  of  noon,  the  splendors  of  sunset,  and  the 
silvery  tenderness  of  the  moonlight  in  that  valley,  are  all  in 
19  «' 


306  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

some  pleasant   way,  which  I  can  hardly  explain,  associated  with 
him. 

Not  even  the  peculiar  beauty  of  his  present  residence  at  Peek- 
skill,  with  the  fine  view  of  the  Hudson,  and  the  suggestion  of 
Switzerland  on  the  farther  bank  of  the  river,  and  the  exquisite 
varieties  of  trees  on  his  own  grounds,  has  drawn  from  him  such 
letters  as  he  used  to  write  from  Lenox.  Is  there  not  as  much  of 
nature  in  Peekskill  as  in  Berkshire  ?  Or  is  it  October  now  instead 
of  June  ? 

At  that  time  the  country  was  plunged  into  the  excitement  and 
turmoil  of  the  civil  war.  The  ring  of  the  martial  music,  as  the 
boys  gathered  from  the  hills  and  went  off  to  the  army,  alternated 
with  the  deeper  quiet  of  the  long  waiting  in  the  dreamy  valley 
for  news  from  the  front.  The  aggravating  "  quiet  along  the 
Potomac  "  reached  up  into  New  England,  and  we  fretted  against 
the  barriers  of  the  hills.  The  North  was  not  sure  of  its  friends. 
The  dominant  party  of  England  stung  us  with  their  lack  of  sym- 
pathy. Never  shall  I  forget  the  exhilaration  with  which  we  read 
there  in  the  hill  country  of  Connecticut,  Mr.  Beecher's  famous 
addresses  in  England,  and  particularly  his  speech  at  Liverpool. 
This  country  owes  more  to  him  for  the  great  aid  which  he 
rendered  our  cause  in  the  Mother-country  than  the  generation 
now  coming  on  the  stage  of  action  realizes. 

When  the  war  was  over,  many  who  remembered  the  power  and 
passion  of  his  advocacy  of  the  nation's  cause  did  not  understand 
his  generous  words  and  friendly  attitude  toward  the  South,  and 
accused  him  of  changing  his  principles.  But  others  saw  that  he 
was  true  to  himself.  With  slavery  gone  and  its  adherents 
beaten,  it  was  a  knight's  chilvalrous  feeling  for  a  valiant  foe  which 
asserted  itself  and  gave  direction  to  his  sympathies.  Looking 
back  upon  it  now  after  sixteen  years,  one  must  appreciate  and 
honor  it  more  than  ever. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  close  this  letter  without  a  reference 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      307 

to  the  time  when  scandal  endeavored  to  blacken  his  good  name. 
On  returning  from  a  six  months'  absence  from  the  country  in  the 
fall  of  1872,  the  air  was  thick  with  the  slanderous  charges  which, 
to  my  unutterable  indignation,  that  burns  yet  when  I  think  of  it, 
were  made  against  Mr.  Beecher.  Other  pens  than  mine  can  best 
describe  the  Christian  spirit  which  he  exemplified  through  all  those 
days  and  years  of  trial  that  followed.  In  the  summer  of  1873 
there  began  a  series  of  vacation  supplies  with  Plymouth  Church, 
which  made  me  more  familiar  with  Mr.  Beecher' s  courage  and 
his  people's  confidence  in  him  than  I  could  have  been  otherwise. 
Those  who  knew  anything  about  it  were  greatly  impressed  with 
the  way  he  controlled  his  people  in  their  great  anger  and  excite- 
ment, with  his  calm,  forgiving  spirit.  But  there  was  one  night 
when  the  excitement  could  not  be  repressed  ;  Plymouth  Church 
was  packed  with  a  loving  and  enthusiastic  people  to  hear  the 
report  of  the  Investigating  Committee.  I  sat  with  Mrs.  Beecher 
where  I  could  best  see  the  great  audience.  The  air  was  electric. 
Both  smiles  and  tears  could  be  easily  summoned. 

I  remember  how  we  laughed  when  Mr.  Halliday,  wishing  the 
sexton  to  turn  on  the  gas,  asked  that  we  might  * '  have  a  little 
more  light  from  above,"  and  how  quickly  the  smiles  were  turned 
to  hot,  indignant  tears  at  the  thought  of  Mr.  Beecher  and  his 
suffering  family. 

It  was  a  thing  to  see  and  never  forget,  when,  at  the  close  of  the 
report,  expressing  an  entire  belief  in  the  integrity  of  their  pastor, 
the  people  rose  at  once,  whitening  the  air  with  their  waving 
handkerchiefs,  while  the  noise  of  the  weeping  was  almost  equal 
to  the  sound  of  the  rejoicing,  though  both  tears  and  smiles 
expressed  the  same  feeling.  It  was  the  instinctive  outbreathing 
of  years  of  affection  for  their  pastor,  it  was  a  splendid  testimony 
to  the  fidelity  of  the  people  through  all  that  protracted  trial  of 
their  faith  and  love. 

I  could  write  on  all  night,  but  your  portfolio  will  demand  room 


308  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

for  other  and  worthier  articles  than  my  letter.  While  frankly 
dissenting  from  some  of  Mr,  Beecher's  theological  positions,  I  am 
glad  to  pay  this  slight  tribute  to  him,  and  to  express  my  grateful 
remembrance  of  what  he  has  been  to  me,  and  my  admiration  of 
his  gifts  and  his  nature. 


IV. 

By  HON.  AMOS  C.  BARSTOW, 

Of  Providence,  R.  I. 

Mr.  Beecher's  "  Lectures  to  Young  Men,"  written  in  his  young 
life,  while  a  pastor  in  Indiana,  first  introduced  him  to  me.  I 
have  not  read  them  since  their  first  publication,  and  could  not 
now  give  from  memory  even  a  synopsis  of  the  topics  discussed  ; 
but  I  have  a  distinct  remembrance  of  the  strong  impression  which 
they  made  on  my  mind.  Though  born  m  neighboring  States  and 
at  about  the  same  time,  and  though  we  spent  our  youth  in  two 
principal  New  England  cities  not  far  apart,  we  had  never  met. 
He  went  West,  and  entering  the  ministry,  had  become  the  active 
and  influential  pastor  of  a  large  church.  I,  on  my  native  heath, 
was  engaged  in  manufactures  and  trade  ;  but  at  the  same  time  had 
become  the  superintendent  of  a  large  Sabbath-school,  and  was  so 
much  interested  in  this  work  and  in  the  young  that  I  read  with 
avidity  everything  which  promised  me  any  aid  in  it. 

This  book  put  me  in  sympathy  with  a  young,  fresh,  vigorous 
mind,  whose  thought  was  uplifting,  whose  style  was  pictorial 
and  captivating,  and  whose  spirit  was  morally  and  spiritually 
magnetic.  So  I  watched  his  course,  and  looked  for  other  and 
fresh  utterances  from  his  lips  or  pen.  In  184*7  he  came  to 
Brooklyn  to  become  the  pastor  of  Plymouth  Church,  where,  on 
a  larger  theatre,  his  eloquence  and  faithfulness  as  a  preacher,  his 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      309 

love  of  liberty,  and  his  generous  sympathy  with  suffering  human- 
ity everywhere,  soon  attracted  the  attention  and  commanded  the 
admiration  of  good  men  throughout  the  land.  Being  actively 
engaged  in  the  great  Christian  works  and  moral  reforms,  which  he 
advocated  with  such  eloquence  and  zeal,  I  soon  made  his  personal 
acquaintance.  I  met  him  in  our  great  religious  convocations — in 
temperance  and  anti-slavery  conventions  ;  and  later  on  in  those 
political  gatherings  during  the  Fremont  campaign  of  1856, 
which  developed  and  crystallized  in  so  large  a  degree  the  moral 
opposition  of  the  people  to  the  system  of  American  slavery.  All 
know  how  distinguished  a  part  he  bore  in  the  great  struggles  for 
the  deliverance  of  the  land  from  drunkenness  and  slavery.  When 
the  proud  and  imperious  spirit  of  slavery  touched  the  lips  of  so 
many  merchants  and  the  tongues  of  so  many  Northern  editors, 
college  professors,  and  Gospel  ministers  with  a  kind  of  moral 
paralysis,  Plymouth  pulpit  was  never  dumb,  and  the  columns  of 
the  Independent,  of  which  he  was  editor,  or  the  Lyceum  platform 
which  he  often  filled  and  graced,  were  never  silent,  nor  did  either 
utter  an  uncertain  sound.  His  heroic  courage,  when  to  my 
persona]  knowledge  it  cost  something  to  be  brave,  and  his  manly 
sympathy  for  the  poor,  even  of  a  despised  race,  no  less  than  his 
eloquent  utterances,  commanded  my  homage,  and  are  still  remem- 
bered with  affectionate  gratitude. 

You  ask  me  for  facts  and  incidents  of  interest  in  Mr.  Beecher's 
public  life. 

The  advice  which  he  was  said  to  have  given  to  a  mercantile 
firm,  members  of  his  congregation,  who  were  threatened  with  the 
loss  of  their  large  Southern  trade,  because  of  their  adherance  to 
anti- slavery  principles — "Tell  them  that  your  goods  are  for  sale 
and  not  your  principles''^ — marks  the  spirit  of  the  man  during 
those  troublous  times,  when  so  many  Northern  merchants  waited 
to  know  of  their  Southern  masters  what  they  should  think  or 
speak,  and  when  and  how  ! 


310  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

Sitting  near  him  at  a  great  temperance  banquet  given  to  John 
B.  Gough,  in  New  York,  twenty-five  or  more  years  since,  I  saw  a 
lady  pass  to  him  a  large  plate  of  jelly,  which  was  quivering  in  all 
its  length,  with  the  query,  "  Mr.  Beecher,  will  you  have  some 
jelly  ?"  His  ready  response  was,  "  I  don't  know  about  that.  It 
looks  as  though  it  had  delirium  tremens  !" 

To  show  the  fertility  of  his  resources,  the  celerity  of  his 
mental  movements,  and  the  peculiarity  of  his  methods,  let  me 
give  a  few  facts  which  have  fallen  under  my  own  observation. 
Those  who  have  heard  him  often  and  observed  him  closely, 
know  how  little  he  confines  himself  to  his  notes,  even  when 
they  are  full  ;  and  that  some  of  his  most  brilliant  utterances  are 
interjected  into  and  sometimes  supplant  portions  of  his  written 
discourse. 

On  one  occasion,  when  lecturing  before  a  Lyceum,  he  was  seen 
to  turn  over  three  or  four  leaves  of  his  manuscript  without  read- 
ing. At  the  close  of  the  lecture  he  was  asked  what  was  on  those 
leaves.  He  answered,  "  I  don't  know.  This  is  a  new  lecture,  and 
I  have  hardly  got  the  hang  of  it.  The  next  time  I  give  it, 
perhaps  I  will  read  those  leaves." 

On  another  occasion,  about  twenty-five  years  since,  when 
announced  to  preach  before  the  Society  of  Missionary  Inquiry  in 
Brown  University,  on  the  evening  before  Commencement,  a  friend 
called  at  the  hotel  to  accompany  him  to  church,  and  found  him 
in  his  room,  with  the  table  from  which  he  had  just  risen  covered 
with  manuscript.  Mr.  Beecher  explained.  He  had  found  no 
time  to  write  a  sermon,  and  had  proposed  to  extemporize,  but 
reaching  the  city  in  the  early  morning,  and  feeling  a  little  afraid 
to  trust  himself,  had  spent  the  entire  day  in  writing,  the  result  of 
which  was  the  twenty  sheets  before  him,  the  ink  on  the  last  not 
then  entirely  dry. 

On  another  occasion,  when  here  to  lecture,  I  sent  my  card  to 
his  room  half  an  hour  before  the    time,  when  he  asked  to  be 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      311 

excused  for  a  few  moments  as  he  was  reading  his  manuscript. 
When  he  came  down  he  apologized  for  the  delay,  and  added  that 
he  left  his  room  before  he  had  completed  the  reading.  Knowing 
from  him  a  week  before  that  he  had  not  then  selected  his  theme, 
1  remarked  that  as  he  had  written  the  lecture  so  recently,  I 
supposed  he  would  remember  it  all.  He  surprised  me  by  saying, 
*'  I  did  not  write  it  !"  I  remarked,  you  do  not  wish  me  to 
understand- that  you  will  read  another  man's  lecture.  "  No  !"  he 
said,  "  but  I  had  not  time  to  do  the  manual  labor,  so  I  took  a 
short-hand  writer  into  my  room,  and  while  I  extemporized  the 
lecture,  he  took  it  in  short-hand,  and  has  since  written  it  out  in  a 
plain,  clear  hand.  There  it  is,  and  I  have  not  yet  read  it  all." 
This  lecture,  with  such  a  history,  was  regarded  by  those  who 
heard  it  as  a  remarkably  fine  one. 

When  speaking  to  a  friend  in  Brooklyn,  a  few  years  since,  of 
these  peculiarities  in  Mr.  Beecher's  mental  methods,  this  friend 
took  from  his  table  a  brief  of  Mr.  Beecher's  last  sermon,  written 
on  several  pages  of  letter  sheet,  and  handing  it  to  me  said,  take  it 
home  with  you.  I  said  no  ;  Mr.  Beecher  would  hardly  excuse 
such  an  act.  Yes,  he  would,  said  the  friend.  He  will  never  use 
it  again.  He  always  makes  fresh  preparation  for  his  sermons. 
He  left  it  here  purposely. 

This  reminds  me  of  an  incident  which  occurred  about  twenty-five 
years  since.  I  was  in  the  White  Mountains  for  the  second  or 
third  time  with  some  of  my  family,  and  going  up  Mount  Wash- 
ington from  the  Crawford  House  with  a  party  of  ten  or  fifteen 
on  horseback — a  ride  of  four  hours — we  met  Mr.  Beecher  and  his 
brother  Thomas  with  other  mutual  friends  on  the  summit.  This 
Avas  his  first  visit  to  the  mountains.  He  had  come  up  the  carriage 
road  from  the  Glen,  but  was  to  go  down  with  our  party  to  the 
Crawford.  Learning  that  the  ride  down  was  a  grand  onp — more 
than  half  of  it  being  down  the  steep,  bare  side  of  Washington, 
and  over  the  bare  ridges  of  two  other  mountains — Mr.  Beecher 


312  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

desired  to  ride  down  alone,  being  willing,  without  guide,  to  trust 
the  instincts  of  his  horse  to  keep  the  trail. 

Selecting  a  fast- walking  horse,  and  starting  a  little  in  advance 
of  the  large  party,  he  was  soon  out  of  sight.  While  we  were 
descending  the  steep  slope  from  the  bare  summit  of  Mount  Wash- 
ington in  Indian  file,  by  zigzag  path,  a  single  horseman  was  seen 
following  far  in  the  rear,  who  it  was  known  did  not  belong  to  our 
party.  The  guide  called  a  halt,  and  leaving  his  horse  clambered 
by  shorter  path  up  the  rough  mountain  side,  until  he  could  hail 
the  stranger,  who  answered  the  hail  by  the  query,  "  Is  Rev. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  of  your  paity  ?"  Being  told  that  he  had 
gone  ahead  and  was  then  out  of  sight,  the  stranger  expressed  his 
regret  ;  but  having  come  up  to  our  party,  and  concluded  to  go 
on,  we  made  room  for  him  to  pass  us  in  the  narrow  trail.  On 
reaching  the  Crawford  House  at  the  close  of  the  day,  we  found 
the  stranger,  who  proved  to  be  a  deacon  of  one  of  the  churches 
in  Littleton — a  village  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains,  eighteen  miles 
distant.  Bcin<x  introduced  to  Mr.  Beecher,  he  invited  and  urixed 
him  to  preach  at  Littleton  the  next  Sabbath.  Mr.  Beecher 
courteously  declined,  saying  that  he  was  away  from  home,  seek- 
ing rest,  and  without  preparation  to  preach.  The  good  deacon 
replied,  "  Yoa  preached  at  Lancaster  last  Sabbath  !"  Mr.  Beecher 
assented,  saying  that  was  his  first  Sabbath  in  this  mountain  region, 
and  as  he  was  visiting  friends  at  Lancaster  who  desired  him  to 
preach,  he  could  not  well  refuse  ;  but  the  preparation  cost  him  an 
entire  day,  of  the  very  few  days  allotted  to  this  journey,  and  he 
could  not  afford  to  spare  another.  The  good  deacon  still  urged  his 
suit,  saying  that  the  news  of  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching  at  Lancaster 
reached  him  Monday  morning — that  he  mounted  his  horse  at  once 
and  rode  to  Lancaster,  twenty-five  miles — then  to  the  Glen,  an 
equal  distance — then  up  the  mountain,  a  four  hours'  ride — that 
he  had  thus  been  two  days  in  hot  pursuit — being  just  too  late 
at  every  point  where  he  had  sought  him — and  begged  him  not  now 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      313 

to  disappoint  his  hopes.  But  Mr.  Beecher  still  courteously  de- 
clined. The  next  day  when  it  was  announced  that  he  had  changed 
his  mind,  and  would  preach  in  Littleton  the  next  Sabbath,  his 
brother  Thomas  said,  "  Henry  talks  a  great  deal  about  backbone, 
but  he  has  no  more  of  it  than  an  eel." 

A  few  years  after,  when  conversing  with  Mr.  Beecher,  I  alluded 
to  this  event,  and  asked  him  to  explain  tome  the  reason  for  chang- 
ing his  mind  ;  when,  bursting  into  a  hearty  laugh,  he  asked  how 
he  could  avoid  it.  Said  he  :  "  In  the  early  dawn  of  that  next,  long 
summer  day,  I  was  aroused  from  my  sleep  by  a  loud  knocking  at 
my  chamber  door.  Reaching  from  my  bed  I  unfastened  and 
opened  the  door,  when  there  stood  the  good  old  deacon,  his  face 
still  sad  with  the  disappointment  of  the  previous  night.  Said  he, 
'  Excuse  me,  Mr.  Beecher,  for  disturbing  you  at  this  early  hour.  I 
arose  early  to  go  home,  and  my  horse  is  at  the  door,  but  I  found 
myself  unable  to  mount  without  making  one  more  effort  to  induce 
you  to  go  to  Littleton.  If  you  cannot  go  on  Sunday,  then  name 
some  other  day.  We  will  have  a  good  congregation  on  any  day 
of  the  week,  with  a  few  hours'  notice.  If  you  can't  preach,  then 
lecture,  speak,  or  exhort  ;  or  if  you  can't  do  either,  then  come  and 
let  us  see  you  and  shake  hands  with  you.  Our  people  know  a 
good  deal  about  you,  and  they  want  to  see  you  anyhow,  if  they 
can't  hear  you.  I  like  to  please  them,  and  have  taken  much  pains 
to  find  you — say,  can't  you  go  ?  ' 

"  The  deacon  was  agitated  and  his  eyes  were  a  little  moist  while 
he  made  this  appeal.  He  seemed  far  more  anxious  than  hopeful. 
To  cheer  him,  and  send  him  home  happy,  I  said,  '  Yes,  I  will 
go  !  I  will  go  anywhere,  and  at  any  time  to  please  you  ;  so 
name  your  day.'  " 

But  I  came  near  forgetting  the  object  I  had  in  view  in  giving 
this  incident,  which  was  to  illustrate  further  Mr.  Beecher's 
methods  of  mental  preparation  for  his  great  efforts.  Hon.  E. 
D.  Holton,   of  Milwaukee,  Wisconsin,  whose  guest  Mr.  Beecher 


314  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

• 

was,  on  the  Sabbath  above  named,  at  his  ancestral  home  at  Lan- 
caster, N.  H.,  told  me  at  the  time,  that  on  that  Saturday  which 
Mr.  Beecher  took  to  prepare  a  sermon  for  the  next  day,  he  was  in 
the  road,  the  woods,  the  garden,  or  pacing  the  floor.  He  was 
anywhere  but  in  his  study,  and  seemingly  doing  anything  but 
preparing  a  sermon.  He  was  evidently  filling  the  hopper.  At 
daylight  the  next  morning  he  commenced  writing,  and  wrote  on, 
without  dinner,  until  the  hour  for  afternoon  service,  and  then 
gave  a  sermon  one  and  a  half  hours  in  length — one  of  the  most 
masterly  exhibitions  of  truth  to  which  he  ever  listened. 


By  henry  highland  GARNETT,  D.D., 

Pastor  of  the  Shiloh  Colored  Presbyterian  Church,  New  York  City. 

It  is  no  small  thing  for  a  man  to  hold  a  place  in  the  hearts  of 
the  people  in  any  section  of  this  country  for  a  period  of  tbirty- 
five  or  forty  years.  To  stand  as  a  representative  man,  holding 
the  most  advanced  ideas  of  humanity,  religion,  and  the  rights  of 
man,  in  or  near  the  great  metropolis  of  this  great  republic,  is 
indeed  extraordinary.  The  life-work  of  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  has  gained  for  him  such  a  reputation  in  the  minds  of 
the  intelligent  and  thoughtful  people  of  the  present  generation, 
entirely  unequalled. 

I  have  watched  his  course  as  a  public  man  and  an  advocate  of 
the  various  interests  of  humanity,  from  his  introduction  into  the 
chosen  field  of  his  labors,  and  have  found  that  everywhere  and 
at  all  times  he  has  stood  manfully  for  truth,  liberty,  and  justice. 
In  wielding  his  sword,  he  has  always  summoned  the  strength  of  a 
strong  arm,  causing  its  keen  edge  and  shining  blade  to  be  felt 
and  seen  in  the  thickest  of  the  battle.     It  is  true,  that  sometimes 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      315 
♦ 

his  weapon  has  failed  to  reach  the  intended  mark,  and  some- 
times it  has  wounded  a  companion  in  arms,  but  never  was  his 
sword  drawn  in  defence  of  wrong,  or  sheathed  in  dishonor  in  the 
hour  of  conflict. 

During  the  last  forty  years  the  question  which  has  most 
interested  the  American  people  and  caused  the  eyes  of  Christian- 
dom  to  be  fixed  upon  our  country,  was  the  blight  and  curse  of 
■chattel  slavery.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  began  early  to  take  a  part 
in  the  struggle,  and  remained  in  the  field  until  the  nefarious  system 
perished.  Nor  has  he  ceased  bis  labors  in  the  great  work  which 
remains  to  be  done  in  order  to  make  emancipation  and  political 
■enfranchisement  complete.  The  freedom  of  the  ballot,  free 
schools  for  all  the  people  of  the  South,  and  education  and  free- 
dom to  worship  God  for  every  American  citizen,  are  the  themes 
which  to-day  arouse  his  burning  eloquence. 

I  know  not  which  most  to  admire  in  the  character  of  Mr. 
Beecher,  his  courage  and  broad  philanthropy,  or  his  varied  intellect- 
ual gifts.  He  seems  to  he  equal  to  every  emergency  and  occa- 
sion. Both  at  home  and  abroad  his  wonderful  resources  have 
always  been  available. 

A  short  time  after  Mr.  Beecher  came  to  Brooklyn,  and  in  the 
most  trying  period  of  the  anti-slavery  struggle,  he  appeared  at  a 
great  meeting  in  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  at  which  the  vener- 
able Samuel  Hanson  Cox  was  one  of  the  speakers.  It  was  not  an 
infrequent  thing  for  some  of  the  strong  men  to  hesitate  and 
falter,  even  after  they  had  chosen  the  right  side.  Dr.  Cox 
had  sujffered  great  persecution  at  the  hands  of  mobs,  and  from  the 
severe  criticisms  and  harsh  judgments  of  professed  friends,  and 
his  faith  and  courage  sometimes  failing  him,  he  occasionally 
swayed  from  one  side  of  the  slavery  controversy  to  the  other. 

At  the  time  to  which  I  refer  the  Doctor  stood  firmly  with  the 
advocates  of  immediate  and  unconditional  emancipation,  and 
had  delivered  an  address  of  great    eloquence    and    power.     Mr. 


316  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

Beecher  followed  and  prefaced  liis  remarks  by  saying  that 
there  was  no  one  in  the  assembly  or  in  the  whole  country  who 
understood  the  anti-slavery  question  better  than  Dr.  Cox  did,  for 
he  had  been  on  all  sides  of  it.  Of  course,  the  remark  was 
received  with  abundant  applause  and  good  humor. 

Near  the  beginning  of  the  slaveholders'  rebellion  there  were 
many  people  in  the  North  who  sympathized  with  those  who  were 
bent  upon  destroying  the  Union  of  the  States,  and  mob  law  and 
riots  and  murder  prevailed,  and  filled  the  hearts  of  loyal  citizens 
with  intense  alarm  ;  Mr.  Beecher  went  over  to  Elizabeth  City, 
N.  J.,  to  speak  in  favor  of  the  Union  and  Abraham  Lincoln's  admin- 
istration. The  Copperheads  of  the  city  declared  that  he  should  not 
speak,  and  threatened  to  kill  him  if  he  made  the  attempt.  The 
mayor  of  the  city  who  was  a  liberal  Democrat  told  the  excited 
crowd  who  had  gathered  around  the  place  of  meeting,  that  Mr. 
Beecher  should  speak  at  all  hazards.  Surrounded  by  a  number  of 
law-abiding  citizens,  Mr.  Beecher  entered  the  hall,  and  from  the 
platform,  amid  an  indescribable  uproar,  he  began  his  speech  by 
saying,  "  Gentlemen,  I  have  been  informed  that  if  I  attempt  to 
speak  here  to-night  I  am  to  be  killed.  Well,  I  am  going  to 
speak,  and  therefore  I  must  die.  But  before  you  kill  me,  there 
is  one  request  I  have  to  make.  All  you  who  are  going  to  stain 
your  hands  in  my  blood  just  come  up  here  and  shake  hands  with 
me  before  you  commit  the  crime,  for  when  I  die  I  shall  go  to 
heaven,  and  therefore  I  shall  never  see  any  of  you  again."  A 
burst  of  applause  followed  this  sally,  and  for  two  hours  Mr. 
Beecher  swayed  the  minds  of  the  audience  as  the  winds  move  the 
seas. 

But  the  greatest  triumph  of  his  life  was  achieved  in  Liverpool, 
England,  in  1863,  after  Commodore  Wilkes  had  overhauled  the 
British  vessel  Trent  on  the  high  seas  and  taken  off  the  arch  rebels 
Mason  and  Slidell,  who  were  on  their  way  to  England.  The  act 
was  without  doubt    a  gross    violation    of    international  law,   and 


\ 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       317 

acknowledged  to  be  so  by  Mr.  Seward,  tben  our  Secretary  of  State, 
wbo  hastened  to  deliver  up  the  prisoners  when  demanded  by  the 
English  Government,  rendering  a  satisfactory  apology.  I  was  in 
Liverpool  on  the  day  on  which  the  news  of  the  transaction  reached 
that  city.  Such  excitement  I  never  saw  among  any  people.  A 
whirlwind  of  public  indignation  and  wrath  swept  over  the  land. 
The  sword  of  every  British  soldier  and  the  army  and  navy  were 
ready  to  spring  to  the  defence  and  honor  of  the  nation.  British 
pride  had  been  deeply  wounded,  and  right  of  asylum  had  been 
violated.  On  the  Sunday  morning  following  the  reception  of  the 
news,  soldiers  in  great  numbers  were  seen  hurrying  through  the 
streets  of  Liverpool,  and  the  cry  was  "  To  arms  !  to  arms  !"  There 
were  many  of  the  English  people  who  were  in  sympathy  with  the 
rebels  of  the  South  from  the  beginning  of  our  civil  war,  and  now 
they  found  a  populg,r  pretext  for  throwing  the  heavy  sword  of  Eng- 
land in  the  balance  against  us.  The  friends  of  the  American  Union 
could  say  but  little  in  our  favor,  as  the  act  was  a  palpable  violation 
of  the  law  of  nations,  and  as  slavery  had  not  yet  been  abolished  by 
the  Federal  government,  they  did  not  see  much  that  was  calculated 
to  enlist  their  sympathies  with  us,  and  they  did  not  much  care 
which  way  victory  turned.  The  cotton  fields  were  in  the  South — 
and  "  Cotton  was  king,"  and  he  fed  the  cotton  mills  of  England, 
kept  the  spindles  in  motion,  and  they  had  a  decided  leaning  tow- 
ard the  South. 

It  was  at  such  a  time  as  this,  when  public  sentiment  was 
bitterly  averse  to  the  interests  of  our  Union,  and  unfriendly  to 
our  success  in  the  great  struggle  to  maintain  its  integrity,  that 
Mr.  Beecher  appeared  in  defence  of  his  country,  in  the  most  pro- 
slavery  and  pro-rebel  town  in  Great  Britain. 

The  defence  of  his  country,  which  he  made  amid  a  turbulent  and 
an  indescribable  uproar  that  baffles  description,  was  one  of  the 
boldest  ever  urged  in  words,  the  most  eloquent  and  triumphant 
that  ever  fell  from  the  lips  of  any  man.     That  speech  furnishes 


318  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

intensely  interesting  pages  in  the  history  of  those  times,  which  in 
the  years  to  come  will  be  eagerly  read  by  the  people  of  both 
countries,  and  will  send  Mr.  Beecher's  name  down  to  future 
generations  as  one  of  the  truest  patriots  of  his  times. 

I  was  myself  in  England  during  the  excitement,  before  Mr. 
Beecher,  and  I  attempted  to  speak  in  the  Town  Hall  in  the  city  of 
Birmingham.  Lord  Colthorp  occupied  the  chair,  and  Joseph 
Sturge,  the  distinguished  Quaker  philanthropist,  made  an  introduc- 
tory speech,  and  notwithstanding  the  readiness  of  the  English 
people  to  hear  a  black  man  when  he  presents  the  claims  of  his 
oppressed  race,  such  was  the  state  of  public  feeling  toward 
Americans  that  the  vast  audience  refused  to  hear  me.  It  was  in 
vain  that  the  noble  chairman  and  the  universally  beloved  friend 
of  man  besought  the  people  to  hear.  After  standing  before  the 
vast,  hissing,  and  hooting  audience  for  a  long  time,  by  effectually 
appealing  to  their  world-wide  reputation  for  their  love  of  fair 
play,  I  got  out  all  that  was  in  me,  for  home,  country,  liberty,  and 
faith  in  God,  for  a  successful  termination  of  our  civil  war. 


VI. 
By  SAMUEL  H.    VIRGIN,   D.D., 

Pastor  of  the  Congregational  Church,  Harlem,  New  York. 

I  CANNOT  tell  when  Mr.  Beecher  emerged  from  an  indefinable 
influence  and  a  name  to  a  reality  in  my  life.  Breathing  an  atmos- 
phere charged  with  the  teachings  of  those  who  were  hostile  to 
slavery,  his  name  with  others  was  familiar  to  my  earliest  child- 
hood. It  was  a  name  that  stood  for  strength  to  resist  and  to 
attack.  It  soon  stood  for  a  personality  brave  and  true  to  all  that 
elevated  humanity,  and  as  I  understood  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ, 
it  added  the  elements  of  loyalty  to  Him.     Not  till  the  time  of 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      319 

manhood  was  it  my  privilege  to  come  into  personal  associations 
with  him,  and  know  by  actual  contact  the  power  and  greatness  of 
his  spirit.  His  thoughts  had  been  familiar  to  me  for  many  years, 
and  yet  when  I  read  them  I  did  not  hear  his  voice  uttering  them, 
nor  feel  his  unique  personality  back  of  them.  His  books  I  circu- 
lated among  the  young  men  under  my  care  for  instruction,  but 
they  did  not  contain  that  element  that  is  incommunicable  in  Mr. 
Beecher's  personality.  It  will  be  an  inestimable  loss  when  that 
is  removed  from  us  altogether  (may  the  Lord  long  delay  the  day  !), 
for  in  it  resides  an  unspeakable  power.  It  is  not  in  the  body  of 
flesh  and  blood,  though  that  has  been  built  up  with  assiduous  care, 
it  is  not  in  the  peculiarity  of  the  brain's  action,  it  is  not  in  the 
elocution,  nor  in  the  nervous  force  with  which  thought  is  sent  to 
its  impact,  but  it  is  in  the  wholeness  of  body  and  soul  and  spirit 
together. 

Some  men  can  be  easily  described,  their  influence  can  be  elimi- 
nated, then  examined  and  measured,  their  contribution  to  thought 
and  life  can  be  gathered  and  weighed.  Mr.  Beecher's  work  and 
influence  cannot  yet  be  expressed  with  any  degree  of  definiteness. 

Some  men  do  their  work  upon  the  past,  completing  and  bring- 
ing to  the  present  the  failures  and  incompleteness  of  others,  and 
their  work  is  valuable.  Other  men  live  solely  in  the  present, 
moulding  and  shaping  its  thought,  controlling  its  practicalities, 
and  helping  to  the  measure  of  their  abilities  in  the  struggles  of 
their  day.  Other  men  live  in  the  future.  Their  work  stretches 
far  on  beyond  the  border  of  their  lives.  They  are  prophets.  They 
touch  the  present  but  to  prepare  its  surface  and  scatter  seed  ;  they 
awaken  expectation  and  stimulate  toils  that  fruit  hereafter.  They 
are  not  visionary,  but  the  most  practical  of  useful  men.  Their 
touch  is  health.  They  help  to  broaden  and  enrich  all  with  which 
they  come  in  contact  ;  they  carefully  guard  germs  of  life  lest  they 
be  destroyed,  and   they  plant  and   nourish   that  which  is  to  give 

life  to  generations  yet  to  come.     There  is  nothing  narrow  in  their    ..  '..-*~*>«^ 

.'....1    *J''   r  ,//>'/■./ 


V"* 


APR    2   1935 


0 


320  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

tliouglit  ;  tliey  batter  against  the  barriers  of  the  past  and  the  pres- 
ent because  they  see  springing  life  beyond  the  bounded  space  ; 
they  are  misunderstood  because  the  time  to  judge  them  has  not 
come  ;  they  rise  above  petty  criticisms  because  they  have  a  broad 
outlook  and  have  faith  in  the  future  greatness  of  God's  world  and 
people  ;  they  cannot  be  sectarian  ;  they  are  not  watchful  of  their 
own  personal  interests;  they  help  men  because  they  live  largely  and 
toward  God  ;  they  are  not  free  from  mistakes  and  faults  and  are 
liable  to  be  ensnared  by  designing  men. 

Such  an  one  is  Henry  Ward  Beecher  in  my  thought.  As  true 
a  Christian  as  lives,  as  pure  a  soul  as  thinks,  as  simple  and  trustful 
a  spirit  as  God  has  in  the  world.  Learned  in  the  things  of  spirit- 
ual life,  impulsive  with  the  breath  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  bating 
shams  and  all  that  is  false  and  oppressive,  loving  the  brotherhood 
and  blessing  those  that  curse  and  praying  for  those  who  despite- 
fully  use  him,  such  is  the  man  as  he  shows  himself  to  one  who 
differs  from  him  often  theologically  and  often  on  questions  of 
polity,  but  who  has  never  lost  confidence  in  the  sweetness  and 
beauty  of  his  inner  life,  and  whose  witness  of  his  tenderness  and 
forbearance  as  shown  through  the  years  of  trouble  in  the  ministe- 
rial body  of  which  he  is  a  member,  has  often  brought  to  mind  the 
example  of  the  aged  John,  saying,  "  Little  children,  love  one  an- 
other." 

All  estimate  of  his  life  will  be  faulty  that  is  made  within  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  after  he  is  taken  to  the  skies,  for  his  seed- 
thought  and  influence  will  not  mature  speedily,  for  it  affects 
principles  and  truths  that  are  to  be  the  life  and  joy  of  ages  to 
come. 

His  prayers  are  the  transparent  glass  through  which  the  whole 
working  of  his  spirit  may  be  seen,  and  those  who  knelt  with  him 
at  morning  devotions  in  the  Catskills,  on  a  summer  excursion,  will 
ever  recall  with  a  thrill  of  emotion  the  marvellous  glory  that 
crowned  that  mercy-seat. 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      321 

VII. 

By  EDWARD   P.  INGERSOLL,  D.D., 

Of  Brooklyn,  New  York. 

Thirty  years  ago,  a  college  literary  society,  of  which  I  was  a 
member,  debated  the  question  :  "  Which  is  father  of  the  most 
brains,  old  Mr.  Burleigh  or  old  Dr.  Beecher?  "  Lyman  Beecher 
carried  the  day,  both  as  to  the  quantity  and  quality  of  offspring. 
The  logic  of  events  has  proved  our  boyish  wisdom.  Mistoria.  testis 
temporum.  In  the  midst  of  this  Eschol  cluster  is  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  the  most  prominent  and  in  many  regards  the  most  gifted 
of  them  all.  It  sometimes  seems  to  'me  as  if  Mr.  Beecher  had 
lived  forever.  In  my  early  boyhood  I  used  to  read  about  him. 
In  my  early  manhood  I  occasionally  heard  him  preach  and  lecture, 
and  was  wont  to  look  upon  him  as  a  mighty  Jehu — a  fast  but  a 
safe  driver  ;  higher  still,  as  a  fiery  John  the  Baptist,  preaching 
repentance  to  a  nation.  And  now,  though  I  am  in  njiddle  life,  he 
is  still  one  of  the  foremost  men  of  the  land  ;  strong,  clear,  aggress- 
ive, his  sympathies  untouched  by  age.  "  His  eye  is  not  dimmed 
nor  his  natural  force  abated."  His  nature  is  wonderful  in  its  com- 
binations. Such  a  marvellous  harmony  of  body,  mind,  and  soul  ! 
So  full  of  warm  blood  !  So  kindly  and  genial  !  So  observant  of 
the  little  things  of  nature  and  the  little  things  of  life  that  are 
transpiring  !  How  can  such  a  man  be  a  student  ?  And  yet  upon 
a  more  intimate  acquaintance  you  find  his  intellect  is  finel}'  poised. 
Every  wheel  and  every  cog  is  ready  for  work.  He  is  like  one  of 
those  old-time  New  England  schoolmasters,  who  had  eyes  in  the 
back  of  his  head.  He  is  an  Argus,  and  every  picture  caught  upon 
the  retina  is  transferred  by  the  quick  chemistry  of  his  mind  with 
unfading  colors,  and  hung  in  the  gallery  of  his  memory.  What 
many  wise  men  toil  for  he  seizes  without  the  tardy  processes  of 
syllogisms.  There  is,  too,  an  "  over-soul  "  in  him  which  makes 
20 


322  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

him  kindred  to  everybody  and  to  everything,  A  few  years  ago 
I  was  making  my  Monday  trip  to  New  York  by  the  way  of 
Fulton  Ferry.  It  was  a  bleak  winter  day,  and  as  is  my  wont, 
when  a  storm  is  raging,  I  hurried  through  the  cabins  to  the  front,, 
and  there,  standing  well  forward  alone  in  the  storm,  was  Mr. 
Beecher.  I  stood  for  a  moment  near  him,  hesitating  to  speak,, 
but  presently  seeing  through  the  driving  snow  a  sea-gull  piercing 
its  way  against  the  wind,  I  touched  him  and  said,  pointing  up- 
ward, "See  that."  "Yes,"  he  said,  solemnly,  "he  is  mine.'* 
"  Yours  ?"  I  said,  inquiringly.  "  Yes,  I'm  joint  heir,"  and  the 
color  deepened  upon  his  face  and  his  eyes  moistened  as  he  fol- 
lowed the  bird  in  its  brave  flight. 

God  often  raises  up  a  ma?n  for  a  specific  work  who  is  by  no 
means  perfect.  Of  Cyrus  he  said  :  "  I  girded  thee,  though  thou 
hast  not  known  me."  Of  others,  such  as  Jacob  and  Elijah  and 
Peter,  there  are  characteristics  which  we  cannot  commend,  and  yet 
which  we  would  be  slower  to  condemn  if  our  souls  were  fired  as 
were  theirs.  With  all  his  wonderful  power  and  poise  of  nature, 
Mr.  Beecher  seems  to  me  sometimes  like  the  hunter  of  the 
wild  chamois,  who  follows  so  swiftly  and  so  far  that  he  cannot  get 
back  without  bruises.  He  is  apt  to  forget,  while  aglow  with  a 
great  truth  and  expounding  it  for  the  blessing  of  men,  that  any- 
thing else  is  true.  He  seems  for  the  time  to  ignore  its  relation- 
ship to  other  truths,  and  even  to  disallow  the  same  truth  in  other 
relations,  thereby  giving  only  half  truths.  His  mind  is  analogical 
rather  than  logical.  To  him  everything  beautiful  is  a  picture  of 
divine  realities,  and  he  sweeps  in  too  much  of  earthly  resemblances 
as  he  burns  with  eagerness  to  persuade  and  comfort  men.  His 
methods  of  startling  speech,  his  iconoclastic  way  of  breaking  old 
forms  which  to  him  have  no  life,  seem  sometimes  ruthless ; 
they  are  so,  especially  when  he  swings  so  long  and  strong  a  staff  as 
to  bruise  the  good  men  who  stand  about  the  time-honored  institu- 
tions of  the  Church.     Nor  can  I  agree  with  some  of  his  views  of 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       325 

4 

divine  truth  ;  but  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  printed  rep- 
resentations  of  his  belief  have  often  been  gross  misrepresenta- 
tions, and  this  especially  because  his  statements  have  been  broken 
from  their  moorings  ;  have  been  severed  from  the  connections  with 
which  they  must  stand  to  be  fairly  understood. 

After  he  is  gone,  he  will  be  measured  as  a  philanthropist,  as  an 
orator,  as  a  friend,  as  a  preacher,  as  a  man,  by  the  great  void  he 
makes,  and  then  he  will  be  acknowledged  to  have  been  one  of  the 
rarest,  truest,  and  most  princely  of  men.  He  lives  now  misunder- 
stood by  cold,  phlegmatic  natures,  justly  criticised,  I  think,  by  those 
who  sweep  the  whole  horizon  of  revealed  truth,  but,  on  the  whole, 
he  lives  a  great  beating  heart  from  which  suffering  men  and  the 
Christian  world  receive  fresh,  strong  throbs  of  life.  We  love  him 
because  we  believe  he  loves  the  truth  with  an  unfeigned  love. 
We  grasp  his  hand,  believing  him  loyal  to  the  Master,  with  a  holy 
ardor,  saying  that  and  only  that  which  for  the  time  he  believes  to 
be  true,  everlastingly  true  ;  and  hating  shams  as  only  they  can 
hate  them  who  are  filled  with  a  sense  of  enduring  realities.  It 
may  be  said  of  him,  for  the  most  part,  "  He  has  touched  nothing 
he  did  not  adorn."  Hail  to  this  pioneer  !  All  honor  to  this 
patriot !     Love  and  reverence  for  this  ' '  great  heart. ' ' 

Serus  in  coelum  redeat. 


VHI. 
Bt  J.  0.  PECK,  D.D.,' 

Pastor  of  Hanson  Place  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  Brooklyn,  New  York. 

Men  have  differed  in  their  estimate  of  the  ability,  excellence, 
and  usefulness  of  Paul,  Moses,  Luther,  Calvin,  Wesley,  and  most 
fiercely  of  all,  in  their  opinions  concerning  Jesus  Christ.  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  could  not,  and  probably  would  not  desire  to  escape 


326  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

this  diversity  of  liuman  judgment.  Any  man  who  shakes  the 
world,  and,  like  the  apostles,  turns  it  upside  down,  will  be  loved 
and  hated,  glorified  and  denounced.  This  is  one  of  the  sequences 
of  wielding  large  power.  In  Africa,  the  hunters  sometimes 
chance  upon  a  spot  where  the  wild  rice  is  all  trampled  down,  the 
undergrowth  is  tangled  and  torn,  and  a  huge  trail  looks  as  if  the 
army  of  Hannibal  had  just  marched  past  on  a  conquering  cam- 
paign. They  know  by  the  signs  that  they  are  in  the  vicinity  of 
a  herd  of  elephants  which  have  lately  passed  that  way  !  When  I 
look  at  the  life-work  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  for  about  forty 
years,  preaching,  lecturing,  storming  the  American  Bastile  of 
Slavery,  thrilling  us  at  home,  and  cowering  unfriendly  audiences 
abroad,  with  his  trumpet-blasts  of  patriotism  for  the  preservation 
of  the  Union,  the  broken  boughs  and  trampled  wild  rice  and 
huge  trail  he  has  made  in  American  history  compel  me  to 
exclaim,  "A  giant  has  passed  this  way  !"  I  realize  how  utterly 
impossible  it  is  for  me  to  portray  Mr.  Beecher.  He  is  so  many- 
sided  in  genius,  so  kaleidoscopic  in  the  play  of  his  great  powers, 
that  only  another  Beecher  could  make  a  just  portraiture  of  a 
Beecher.  Who  can  give  a  complete  word  picture  of  Niagara  ? 
It  must  be  seen  and  felt  !  It  must  take  its  awful  leap  before  our 
eyes,  thunder  in  our  ears,  and  spring  its  rainbows  above  our 
heads  !  It  brings  the  drops  of  dew  to  my  forehead  to  attempt  to 
think  around  this  magnificent  man  !  I  shall  only  try  to  represent 
how  he  impresses  me,  not  assuming  to  characterize  him  dogmati- 
cally. And  first  permit  me  to  say  that  while  I  admire  and  love 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  I  do  not  esteem  him  a  perfect  man,  or  a 
model  theologian.  He  often  perplexes,  and  sometimes  vexes  me  ! 
I  don't  believe  all  he  says  and  teaches.  But  then  other  people 
don't  believe  all  I  say  and  teach  !  I  pity  them  in  their  obtuseness 
of  course  !  There  is  onl}'  one  infallible  theologian  in  the  world, 
the  Pope  !  Yet  Luther  voiced  a  great  fact  when  he  declared  that 
every  man  at  the  bottom  is  a  little  Pope.     Every  man  is  so  sure 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       337 

that  he  is  right.  "  Orthodoxy  is  my  doxy  :  heterodoxy  is  other 
people's  doxy."  This  assumption  of  infaUibility  in  theological 
dogma,  with  its  accompanying  uncharity,  pains  me.  For  no  man 
knows  that  his  or  his  denomination's  interpretation  of  the  Bible 
expresses  absolutely  the  mind  of  God  in  the  Word,  so  that  his 
creed  includes  all  truth  and  excludes  all  error.  We  are  all 
heretics  at  the  best  !  While  I  heartily  accept  the  creed  and  believe 
the  doctrines  of  my  own  denomination  as  the  best  expression  of 
the  truths  of  Holy  AVrit,  I  dare  not  say  that  I  know  that  we  are 
altogether  right,  and  others  wrong  wherein  they  differ  from  us.  I 
believe  they  are,  but  only  God  knows  !  Now  because  I  dare  not 
assume  infallibility,  I  dare  not  pronounce  Mr.  Beecher  a  heretic 
wherein  he  does  not  agree  with  my  creed.  At  all  events  I  will 
not  stone  him  until  I  get  to  heaven,  and  no  longer  see  through  a 
glass  darkly  !  Theology,  the  science  of  God,  must  ever  remain  an 
incomplete  science,  since  no  finite  mind  will  ever  comprehend  the 
Infinite.  Mysteries  will  ever  hang  around  our  profoundest  con- 
ceptions of  God  and  His  government,  as  clouds  skirt  the  horizon. 
The  oracle  declared  Socrates  to  be  the  wisest  man  in  Athens 
because  he  knew  that  he  did  not  know  all  things.  Nescience  is 
often  wisdom.  Therefore  I  shall  not  attempt  to  prove  Mr. 
Beecher  theologically  unsound.  My  conviction  is  that  he  is  more 
Dearly  orthodox  in  his  theology  than  the  impressions  of  his 
pecuiiai  methods  of  putting  things  indicates.  Merely  recording 
that  I  do  not  agree  with  my  understanding  of  some  of  his  theolog- 
ical views,  I  leave  out  any  discussion  of  them. 

I.  Mr.  Beecher  as  a  man. 

1.  The  foundation  of  all  he  is,  and  all  he  has  done  is  his  phys- 
ical system.  Without  that  he  never  could  have  been  what  he  is, 
or  have  done  his  work.  The  basis  of  many  of  the  finest  qualities 
of  raind  and  heart  is  in  the  physical  organization.  The  effective 
wielding  of  these  higher  forces  is  almost  wholly  in  proportion  to 
the    effectiveness  of  the  body.     The  calibre  of  the  gun  largely 


328  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

determines  the  effectiveness  of  the  ammunition.  Hercules  in  a 
rotten  boat  would  make  a  poor  race  !  Mr.  Beecher  has  one  of  the 
best  animal  organizations  in  this  generation.  He  has  those  quali- 
ties of  fineness,  elasticity,  susceptibility,  vigor,  nerve,  and  endur- 
ance— I  beg  pardon,  but  in  one  word — thoroughbred.  This  is 
partly  inherited  and  partly  cultivated  in  him.  He  has  done 
immense  service  to  this  and  coming  generations  by  teaching  them 
how  to  develop  and  maintain  the  highest  physical  conditions, 
and  thus  to  be  fitted  for  the  best  work.  I  conceive  that  his 
undiminished  popularity  and  power  and  freshness  are  due  as  much, 
aye  more,  to  his  unimpaired  physical  forces  than  to  anything  else. 
He  is  thus  a  perpetual  admonition  to  the  younger  clergy,  who 
read  his  Yale  lectures  and  sermons,  not  to  waste  their  physical 
resources,  nor  by  neglecting  the  laws  of  hygiene  to  force  prema- 
ture superannuation.  The  buoyancy  and  elasticity  of  his  tempera- 
ment have  their  roots  deep  in  his  physical  organization.  In  short, 
that  is  the  rich  soil  out  of  which  has  grown  and  blossomed  the 
thousand  beautiful  creations  of  his  brain. 

2.  But  this  superb  stalk  is  crowned  with  a  more  magnificent 
flower.  His  brain  is  not  only  massive  but  luminous — an  intellect- 
ual kohinoor,  ' '  a  mountain  of  light. ' '  There  may  be  a  large  brain — 
large  and  coarse  as  a  sunflower.  The  massivencss  of  his  brain,  how- 
ever, is  not  more  remarkable  than  the  exquisite  fineness  of  its 
quality.  He  has  all  the  insight,  imagination,  and  emotion  of  a 
poet.  He  is  a  prose-poet  of  great  brilliance.  But  one  quality  of 
his  mind  has  increasingly  impressed  me  the  longer  I  have  known 
and  read  Mr.  Beecher — his  subtle  metaphysics.  He  is  not  a 
metaphysician  so  much  by  intention  as  by  necessity.  It  is  in  the 
texture  of  his  mind.  He  is  not  forever  parading  his  metaphysics 
to  invite  your  admiration  of  the  polished  tools  with  which  he 
builds  his  masterpieces.  He  is  more  anxious  to  have  you 
enraptured  with  the  finished  temple  of  manhood,  echoing  with 
praise  of  God,  than  to  have  you  captivated  with  the  scaffolding. 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       329 

But  his  masterly  sermons  could  never  be  erected  without  that 
metaphysical  scaflEolding.  While  the  capacity  of  his  intellect, 
from  which  he  has  poured  for  forty  years  one  incessant  stream  of 
golden  thought,  fills  one  with  amazement  at  the  vastness  of  his 
resources  in  himself,  Avhile  the  fertility  and  diversity  of  his  genius 
are  a  perpetual  marvel,  the  undimmed  brilliancy,  the  unfading 
beauty  of  his  eloquence  are  no  less  a  source  of  grateful  wonder- 
ment. His  sermons  are  richer  and  more  chastely  beautiful  now 
than  in  any  preceding  decade.  He  has  poured  forth  more  strong 
and  beautiful  thought  during  his  public  life  in  all  the  range  of  his 
pulpit,  platform,  lecture-room  utterances  and  published  writings, 
than  any  other  man  of  the  century,  and  yet  the  gems  hang  im- 
pearled  on  every  utterance  to-day  as  richly  and  beautifully  as  in 
any  period  of  the  past.  Perhaps  the  one  quality  of  his  mind  that 
makes  him  peerless  and  almost  unapproachable  is  his  power  of 
illustration.  In  this  he  is  unique.  His  strong  individuality  is 
not  more  marked  in  any  quality  of  his  mind  than  in  the  one  just 
mentioned.  Let  one  read  promiscuously  fifty  illustrations  from  a 
half-score  of  the  most  brilliant  preachers  of  to-daj-,  on  both 
continents,  and  a  reader  of  Mr.  Beecher  will  detect  his  as  readily 
as  a  diamond  connoisseur  will  discover  "  old  mine"  stones.  Not 
that  his  illustrations  are  more  beautiful  and  finished — they  are 
often  homely  and  rough  as  granite — but  that  their  force  and  apt- 
ness, their  clearness  and  strikingness  bear  the  unmistakable  stamp 
of  his  mint.  We  say  not  that  his  illustrations,  many  of  them,  are 
lacking  in  beauty.  On  the  other  hand,  multitudes  of  them  are 
unsiirpassed  in  exquisite  beauty.  But  their  appositeness  is  even 
more  marked  than  their  elegance.  The  range  and  inexhaustible 
freshness  of  his  illustrations  are  remarkable.  Perhaps  I  should 
not  be  transcending  propriety,  nor  challenging  dissent,  in  saying 
that  in  illustration  of  truth  he  is  more  like  Christ  than  any  other 
preacher  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

3.    Socially   Mr.    Beecher    is    charming.      He    is    the    farthest 


380  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

remove  from  being  aristocratic  or  self-assertive  among  Lis  fel- 
low-clergy of  all  denominations.  Who  that  has  mingled  with 
him  at  ministerial  clubs  or  associations,  will  not  recall  his  gen- 
erous cordiality  to  all  ?  Perhaps  popinjays,  and  peacocks,  and 
patronizing  bores  have  felt  that  he  was  not  very  sociable  !  These 
he  lets  alone,  unless  they  force  from  him  a  Parthian  arrow  ! 
Then  they  let  liim  alone  !  His  sparkling  wit  and  humor,  com- 
bined with  an  overflowing  good-nature,  and  chastened  by  a  gen- 
uine kindness,  make  him  king  of  the  feast  in  social  hours.  There 
men  love  him  as  elsewhere  they  admire  him. 

4.  As  a  Christian,  he  perplexes  many  who  know  him  only 
by  reputation.  The  current  conviction  in  some  quarters,  that 
he  is  theologically  oblique  ;  the  overplay  of  wit  and  pleasantry 
in  the  pulpit  occasionally  ;  the  apparent  lack  of  seriousness  and 
reverence  for  the  traditional  solemnity  of  the  preacher's  function 
which  shocks  some  people  ;  the  applause  and  laughter  which 
sometimes  greet  his  bursts  of  eloquent  indignation  or  appeal,  have 
created  somewhat  of  an  impression  that  he  is  not  a  spiritual  man. 
My  personal  association  with  him  in  the  later  years  of  his  minis- 
try compel  me  to  testify  to  the  conviction  of  his  deep  spirituality. 
His  ordinary  prayers  before  sermon  are  the  most  extraordinary 
evidences  of  real  intimate  communion  with  God.  He  seems  talk- 
ing with  God  face  to  face,  not  as  a  pleading  mendicant,  but  as  a 
conscious  and  acknowledged  son.  And  I  know  (how,  I  need  not 
say)  that  his  public  j^rayers  are  but  the  reflection  of  his  sincere 
abiding  communion  with  God  in  private  life.  Never  will  the 
members  of  the  Brooklyn  Clerical  Union  forget  a  "  conversa- 
tion "  he  gave  us,  by  request,  in  May,  1880,  on  the  relation  of 
private  to  public  prayer  in  a  minister's  life.  As  he  spoke  of  his 
personal  experience  and  of  how  he  cultivated  and  fed  his  spiritual 
life,  we  all  felt  that  the  speaker  was  one  who  dwelt  in  the  Holy  of 
Holies  in  rich,  blessed  communion  with  God.  When  asked  if 
those  remarkable  public  prayers  were  prepared  or  studied  before- 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       331 

hand,  he  repUed,  "  No  !  I  never  know  a  word  I  shall  utter.  All 
true  prayer  is  an  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Sometimes  I  have 
a  consciousness  of  great  sympathy  with  men  in  their  burdens, 
sorrows,  and  struggles.  Then,  I  shall  be  likely  to  be  led  to  pray 
in  that  direction.  At  other  times,  I  am  full  of  thoughts  of  the 
dear  ones  who  have  left  us,  and  then  I  shall  probably  pray  about 
heaven.  That  is  the  only  hint  I  have  of  what  my  prayers  may  be. 
Real  prayer,  I  repeat,  is  an  inspiration."  I  may  here  sum  up  by 
saying  that  my  conviction,  as  the  result  of  personal  intercourse 
and  thoughtful  study  of  his  writings,  is,  that  Mr.  Beecher  is  a 
man  of  real  deep  spirituality.  Perfect  in  life  he  is  not  ;  for  he 
has  his  share  of  faults,  and  has  made  his  share  of  mistakes,  and 
has  sinned  his  share  of  transgressions,  but  that  he  has  sought  to 
live  sincerely  to  the  glory  of  God  and  labor  earnestly  for  the 
good  of  man,  I  fully  believe.  An  honest  Christian,  but  not  fault- 
less, I  believe  he  is,  and  has  always  striven  to  be.  A  man  dear 
to  God,  and  to  whom  God  is  inexpressibly  and  savingly  precious, 
is  my  conviction  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  as  a  Christian  man. 

II.  As  a  Preacher,  I  hesitate  not  to  say  that,  in  my  opinion, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  is  the  greatest  preacher  in  the  world  to-day, 
and  is  one  of  the  score  of  greatest  preachers  in  all  history. 
Other  men  have  excelled  him  in  single  points  of  strength.  As  a 
theological  preacher  I  should  not  rank  him  high.  In  the  severely 
logical  line  of  preaching  he  is  not  pre-eminent.  He  does  not 
aim  at  that  kind  of  sermonizing.  In  evangelistic  preaching  he  is 
not  to  be  compared  with  George  Whitefield.  However,  White- 
field's  printed  sermons  are  not  to  be  compared  with  Mr.  Beecher's 
discourses.  The  former  are  not  remarkable,  while  the  latter  are 
sparkling  and  fresh  as  a  May  morning,  at  the  same  time  that  they 
are  vigorous  as  mountain  breezes.  Mr.  Beecher  is  a  great  teacher, 
more  than  simply  a  great  orator,  in  the  pulpit.  He  is  a  natural 
orator,  but  oratory  is  subordinated  to  teaching.  He  aims  to  build 
up    Christian    manhood.      Men    must    be    educated    by    religious 


332  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

truth,  and  this  demands  an  inspiring  teacher.  His  thought  is  not 
crude,  but  refined.  What  he  reads  he  assimilates,  so  that  every- 
thing he  utters  seems  as  original  as  if  no  one  else  had  ever  discov- 
ered the  same  thought.  He  has  borrowed  little  from  books,  and 
his  sermons  are  evolved  from  his  own  fertile  brain.  He  reads 
much,  but  digests  all.  His  sermons  are  pre-eminently  practical. 
His  object  being  to  build  men  up  in  a  large,  broad,  many-sided 
manhood,  all  his  sermons  and  lecture-room  talks  are  for  use  in 
daily  life.  His  sermons  are  meant  for  service,  and  not  for  exhibi- 
tion. Metaphysical  in  subtle  unfolding  of  truth,  lightning-like  in 
vividness  of  portrayal,  picturesque  and  grand  in  illustration, 
pathetic  or  thrilling  in  application,  eloquent  and  swaying  in  the 
power  of  utterance,  he  is  the  greatest  preacher  that  America  has 
ever  produced.  His  influence  has  been  large,  outside  of 
Plymouth  Church,  on  the  ministry  and  educated  minds  of  the 
generation.  All  will  not  appreciate  that  influence  at  the  same 
value.  It  has  stimulated  intellect  to  think  independently  ;  it  has 
worked  to  produce  a  larger  catholicity  ;  it  has  glorified  the  father- 
hood of  God  and  exalted  the  brotherhood  of  man.  For  greatness, 
brilliancy,  and  resources  of  pulpit  power  he  is  unequalled. 

HI.  As  a  Lecturer,  discussing  political,  social,  and  educational 
questions  before  the  large  constituency  of  the  platform,  to  be 
repeated  by  the  press,  he  has  wielded  a  vast  and  salutary  influence 
in  moulding  the  thought  of  his  age.  His  popularity  and  power 
on  the  platform  have  been  very  great,  but  have  never  equalled, 
much  less  eclipsed,  his  popularity  and  power  in  the  pulpit.  He 
has  been  a  moral  force  in  our  civilization. 

IV.  As  a  Patriot,  he  has  engraven  himself  for  immortality  in 
American  history.  He  has  plead  for  the  poor,  the  oppressed, 
and  the  despised,  with  more  eloquence  than  he  would  have  plead 
for  his  own  life  at  the  stake.  He  began  his  ministry  with  espous- 
ing the  cause  of  the  slave,  when  to  be  an  abolitionist  was  to  be 
execrated.  He  continued  that  devotion  through  storm  and  obloquy 
till  the  last  fetter  was  broken,  and  the  last  chattel  was  an  enfran- 


i 


ANALYSES  OF  IIIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       3o3 

chised  citizen  of  tlie  Republic.  In  the  galaxy  of  illustrious 
philanthropists  his  name  shines  conspicuously.  The  wrongs  of 
the  African,  the  Indian,  and  the  Mongolian,  injustice  to  woman 
and  the  laboring  classes,  national  intelligence,  equal  rights  for  all 
men,  and  the  great  cause  of  temperance,  have  always  evoked  his 
eloquent  voice  and  pen.  The  service  of  humanity  and  his 
country  with  him  has  been  the  service  of  God.  The  distin- 
guished ability  and  grand  effectiveness  with  which  he  served  the 
cause  of  the  Union  during  the  Rebellion,  by  his  impassioned 
loyalty  at  home,  and  with  which  he  even  more  gloriously 
defended  the  undivided  Republic  before  scowling  and  howling 
disunion  sympathizers  in  Great  Britain,  entitle  him  to  the  ever- 
lasting gratitude  of  America.  Not  till  the  last  African  face  has 
disappeared  from  American  society — not  till  the  memory  of  our 
struggle  for  an  undivided  Repubic  fades  out  of  history — not  till 
the  ingratitude  of  an  effete  and  decaying  nation  consigns  the  loyalty 
and  heroism  of  her  noblest  patriots  to  oblivion — will  the  sturdy 
and  chivalric  patriotism  of  Mr.  Beecher  be  forgotten  !  As  an 
inspiring  force  in  the  history  of  the  Republic  his  fame  is  assured. 
When  we  review  his  great  qualities  of  manhood,  eloquent  on  the 
platform,  peerless  in  the  pulpit,  Christ-like  in  philanthropy, 
Roman  in  his  patriotism,  we  are  forced  to  exclaim,  "  One  of  the 
few  immortal  names,  that  were  not  born  to  die."  He  is  loved 
almost  to  idolatry,  and  eulogized  almost  to  apotheosis  by  hosts  of 
ardent  friends.  Of  course  he  has  not  escaped  the  poisoned  shafts 
of  foes  ;  but,  like  the  now  revered  and  sainted  Dr.  Payson  and 
Archbishop  Fenelon,  whom  the  hounds  bayed  at  while  living, 
but  whose  sweet  fame  by  Divine  providence  is  a  sacred  depositum 
of  humanity  and  history,  when  his  foes  are  forgotten,  the  name  of 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  will  shine  as  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever  ! 

"Nothing  need  cover  his  high  fame  but  heaven  ; 
No  ijyramids  set  off  bis  memories  ; 
But  the  eternal  substance  of  his  greatness, 

To    WHICH    I    LEAVE    HIM." 


334  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

IX. 
Bv  PETER  MACLEOD, 

Of  Glasgow,    Scotland. 

It  was,  I  think,  in  the  Autumn  of  1863  that  Mr.  Beecher 
called  on  me  in  Glasgow.  He  had  visited  the  Continent,  spent 
some  time  in  London,  and  wished  to  see  a  little  of  Scotland  before 
his  departure  for  home.  He  had  fixed  his  passage  from  Liver- 
pool, and  only  a  few  days  were  left  for  Scotland.  But,  as 
Burns  says, 

"The  best  laid  schemes  of  mice  and  men  gang  aft  a-gley. " 

Little  did  Mr.  Beecher  know  the  ordeal  through  which  he  wae 
to  pass,  or  the  results  on  the  public  mind  which  he  was  to  leave 
behind  him  before  he  sailed  from  our  shores. 

He  appeared  to  me  much  downcast,  very  moody,  grieved,  and 
home-sick.  The  Southern  Confederates  at  that  time  were  at  the 
best,  steadily  advancing  North  toward  Pennsylvania.  The  Northern 
generals  appeared  unequal  to  Lee  and  Jackson  ;  and  on  the  whole 
the  prospect  looked  dark  and  ominous.  Mr.  Beecher  never  for  a 
moment  lost  faith  in  the  ultimate  issue  ;  but  the  sad  news  of  the 
slaughter  of  his  countrymen  vexed  him  sore.  He  could  not  speak 
on  the  subject  or  look  across  the  Atlantic  without  his  eyes 
filling.  This,  coupled  with  the  general  apathy,  indifference,  or 
opposition  which  he  had  met  on  his  travels  from  press  and  people 
in  the  cause  nearest  to  his  heart,  filled  him  with  chagrin,  if  not 
disgust.  He  was  very  taciturn.  He  had  just  listened  to  Brougb 
am's  scathing  speech  agaist  the  North,  in  Edinburgh. 

He  arrived  in  Glasgow  on  Friday  evening,  and  on  Saturday  he 
was  urged  to  preach  on  Sunday,  but  refused  on  the  ground  that 
it  was  only  to  satisfy  "  the  animal  heat  and  pressure  of  curiosity," 
he  had   been  asked.      On  being  plied  further,  he  said,   **  Rathe? 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       335 

than  appear  obstinate,  lie  would  address  a  prayer-meeting  quietly,'* 
but  on  being  told  that  the  evening  papers  were  all  now  published, 
and  that  no  notice  of  the  sermon  could  be  given,  so  that  there 
would  only  be  the  regular  congregation,  he  at  length  somewhat 
reluctantly  consented  to  preach  in  the  morning.  It  was  remarked 
that  the  time  was  short  for  preparation,  but  that  likely  he  had 
brought  some  sermons  with  him  ;  whereupon  he  replied,  "  I 
never  look  after  a  bullet  when  once  it  is  fired."  The  news  had 
somehow  got  wing  on  Sunday  morning,  so  nmch  so  that  even  the 
pulpit  stairs  were  crowded  to  such  an  extent  that  it  was  with 
difficulty  he  could  wend  his  way  up  to  the  pulpit.  He  preached 
for  upward  of  an  hour  ;  and  the  sermon  was  one  of  the  noblest 
ever  delivered  in  that  church.  Not  long  before  Thomas  Binney, 
of  London,  had  preached  three  sermons  in  the  same  pulpit,  but  at 
the  close  of  Beecher's  discourse  a  distinguished  minister  present 
whispered  into  my  car,  "That's  worth  Binney 's  three  I'"  The 
senior  deacon  of  the  church,  who  was  a  little  chary  about  Beecher 
preaching  in  that  pulpit,  in  consequence  of  the  warlike  qualities 
in  which  the  papers  had  represented  him,  said  at  the  close,  "  He 
is  the  Prince  of  Preachers."  I  may  add  that  I  have  heard 
Beecher  often  preach,  but  never  with  such  power  before  or  since 
as  that  day.  His  text  was  from  Philippians  2  :  4-11,  "  Look  not 
every  man  on  his  own  things,  but  every  man  also  on  the  things  of 
■,  others.  Let  this  mind  be  in  you,  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus, 
■  who  being  in,  etc.,  etc."  \  number  of  Christian  people  gathered 
round  Mr.  Beecher,  and  on  Monday  morning  a  public  breakfast  was 
got  up  to  his  honor  by  the  Scottish  Temperance  League,  in  the 
large  rooms  of  the  Cobden  Hotel.  This  too  was  crowded. 
After  breakfast  the  chairman  gave  an  address,  referring  to  what  his 
father.  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher,  had  done  for  Temperance,  what  his 
sister,  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  had  done  against  slavery,  and 
what  he  himself  had  done  and  was  doing  as  the  advocate  of  liberty 
and  human  rights.     Mr.  Beecher  in  a  long  speech  replied   seria- 


336  HENRY    WARD  BEECHER. 

tim  to  eacli  of  the  points  ;  but  when  lie  came  to  the  question  of 
slavery  and  the  war  and  to  the  defence  of  the  North,  it  was  like 
the  irruption  of  a  long  pent  up  volcano.      Such  an  avalanche  of 
burning  oratory  had  seldom,  if  ever,  been  heard  by  any  of  the 
persons  present.     When  several  of  the  ministers  in  the  company 
made  speeches  after  him,  one  gentleman  remarked,  "That  they 
all    appeared    like  children    beside  him."     Mr.  Beecher  invited 
questions  to  be  asked  for  any  further  information  they  wished  on 
the  subject.     After  a  good  many  questions  were  asked  and  satis- 
factorily answered,  one  decent,  quiet-looking  gentleman  asked  in  a 
calm,  confidential  tone,  "  Now,  Mr.  Beecher,  do  you  really  think 
that  tariffs  had  not  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  disruption  of  the 
South  ?"      "  If  any  man  asked  that  question  in  the  United  States, 
he  would  be  put  in  a  strait-jacket  right  off,"  replied  Beecher. 
Mr,    Beecher's  speech   was  telegraphed   to   London  ;    and   next 
morning  the    Times  was   down  upon   him   and   his   cause   with   a 
slashing  editorial.     This  only  seemed  to  rouse  Beecher,  and  when 
he  was  urged  by  many  friends  of  the  North  who    had  gathered 
around  him  to  give  somewhat  similar  addresses  before  he  left  to 
enlighten  the  British  people  on  the  whole  question  in  dispute 
between  the  North  and  the  South,  he  at  last  consented  to  give  five 
lectures — one  in  Glasgow  and  one  also  in  Liverpool,  Manchester, 
and  London,  leaving  a  day  for  travelling  between  each  of  the  cities. 
All    he    had    intended    to    see    of   Scotland    was   now  given   up. 
Persons  high  in  rank  and  in  authority  were  telegraphed  to  that  he 
would  not  be  able  to  fulfil  his  promise  to  visit  them.     As  he  said 
himself,  "  Now  for  the  work,  and  off  with  the  coat,  and  may  God 
help  me."     Meetings  to  be  held  in  each  of  the  cities  were  speed- 
ily arranged  by  the  local  friends  of  the  North,  and  advertised  for 
their  respective  days.     The  die  was  now  cast  and  the  campaign 
fairly  opened. 

Liverpool   and   Glasgow    were   the   worst   places   he    had    to 
encounter,  because  the  Clyde  and  the  Mersey  furnished  blockade- 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       337 

runners,  and  other  mercantile  interests  were  also  involved.  On 
the  day  of  his  Glasgow  lecture  the  city  was  emblazoned  with 
large  posters  of  what  Beecher  had  said  and  what  he  had  never 
said  against  Great  Britain.  A  general  excitement  prevailed,  and 
arrangements  were  made  to  secure  the  peace  in  case  of  a  row. 
Beecher  was  spoken  to  in  reference  to  the  law  that  regulates 
public  meetings.  He  listened  quietly  to  what  was  said,  and 
then  giving  an  emphatic  slap  on  his  thigh,  "  If  I  can't  keep  them 
in  order  1  am  not  fit  for  the  place. ' ' 

Long  before  the  hour  the  City  Hall  was  crammed,  and 
thousands  could  not  gain  admission.  It  was  with  great  diflS- 
culty  that  Beecher"  himself  made  his  way  through  the  dense 
mass  of  people  to  the  Hall.  Baillie  Govan,  who  was  appoint- 
ed Chairman,  amid  a  storm  of  interruptions  attempted  to  open 
the  meeting.  The  Rev.  Dr.  William  Anderson,  a  great  fa- 
vorite on  the  Glasgow  platform,  had  been  appointed  to  in- 
troduce Mr.  Beecher  ;  but,  after  a  few  preliminary  sentences, 
was  obliged  to  sit  down,  so  uproarious,  was  the  audience.  It 
was  problematical  at  this  stage  whether  the  lecture  would  be 
allowed  to  go  on.  After  a  short  lull  in  the  tempest,  Mr. 
Beecher  sprang  to  the  front  of  the  platform,  and  with  a  good- 
natured,  kindly  countenance,  depicted  the  sublime  beauty  of  our 
Scottish  scenery  through  which  he  had  passed,  the  heroism  of 
our  Scottish  warriors,  the  world-wide  fame  of  our  bards  and 
poets  with  such  glowing  eloquence,  that  a  spontaneous  burst  of 
applause  followed.  This  looked  well  ;  but  it  was  only  temporary, 
for  as  Mr.  Beecher  proceeded  to  the  main  question — viz.,  a 
vindication  of  the  government  and  the  North  against  the  rebellion 
of  the  South — this  was  by  no  means  so  palatable.  For  the  first 
twenty  or  thirty  minutes,  indeed,  it  brought  forth  repeated  storms 
of  disapprobation,  so  much  so  that  once  he  said,  "  that  he  would  sit 
down-and  rest  until  they  got  the  hissing  over."  During  the  last 
hour,   however,   he  had  it  all  his  own  way.      As  a  gentleman 


338  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

remarked,"  lie  appeared  like  a  driver  having  complete  command  of 
his  four-in-liand  team. "  The  exceeding  readiness  with  which  he 
retorted  upon  the  persons  who  hurled  their  questions  at  him,  turn- 
ing the  laugh  in  every  instance  against  the  questioner,  was  a  mar- 
vel of  dialectic  skill,  and  astonished  everybody. 

Some  one  cried  out  exultantly,  "  that  the  South  was  beating 
the  North."  "  Yes,"  replied  Mr.  Beecher,  "  and  when  we  bring 
them  back  to  allegiance,  we  shall  think  more  than  ever  of  them 
for  the  pluck  they  are  showing."  The  cry  of  the  majority  then 
arose,  "  You  shall  never  bring  them  back.'^  "  But  we  shall  bring 
them  back, ' '  reiterated  Mr,  Beecher.  ' '  Never  !  never  !' '  was  the 
almost  unanimous  cry.  Beecher  saw  it  was  useless  to  continue 
this  lung  warfare,  and  he  naively  told  them  a  story  which  tliis 
contest  between  him  and  his  audience  reminded  him  of,  and 
which  put  them  all  into  good  humor  and  made  them  laugh. 
Beecher  took  his  advantage  and  calmly  but  firmly  said,  "  We 
shall  bring  them  back,^''  and  went  on  with  his  lecture  before  they 
got  time  to  reiterate  their  "  never. ''^  As  Mr.  Beecher  was  proceed- 
ing he  said  something  that  looked  like  a  touch  of  boasting, 
when  an  angry  gentleman  cries  out,  "  Oh,  you  are  great 
boasters  in  America."  "  Yes,"  replied  Mr.  Beecher,  "  we  can 
do  a  trifle  at  that  too  ;  at  least  we  do  as  much  as  to  show  what 
nation  we  sprung  from."  At  this  time  cotton  was  scarce  and  the 
demand  great  ;  so  a  gentleman  cries  out,  "  Tell  us  when  the  war 
shall  be  over."  "  That  depends,"  replied  Beecher,  "  partly  on 
how  long  you  continue  to  give  your  sympathy  to  the  South  ;  but 
as  for  us,"  he  continued  with  deepening  emphasis,  "  the  war 
shall  not  cease  so  long  as  there  is  a  slave  in  America  on  whom  the 
sun  of  heaven  can  shine."  Then  another  cried,  "  You  need  not 
waste  your  time  telling  us  about  slavery,  we  hate  slavery  as  much 
as  you."  "  So  everybody  tells  me  whenever  I  meet  them,  that 
they  hate  slavery  ;  but  for  all  your  professions,  strange  to  say, 
you  are  all  caught  in  very  suspicious  company  with  your  arms 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      339 

round  the  slaveholders'  necks."  Another  interposed  with,  "  I  have 
been  in  the  South  and  seen  with  my  own  eyes  that  the  slaves  are 
well  treated.  They  get  plenty  to  eat,  are  well  clothed,  and  are 
allowed  to  sing  and  dance  at  night  as  much  as  they  please."  To 
this  Mr.  Beecher  quaintly  replied,  "  I  have  a  pig  at  home  ;  she 
gets  as  much  as  she  can  eat,  and  as  much  litter  as  she  can  use,  and 
I  allow  her  to  grunt  as  much  as  she  pleases  ;  but  still  she  is  my 
pig."  "  Why  not  let  the  South  go  ?  The  country  is  large  enough 
for  you  both,"  cries  another.  "  All  very  well  for  you  to  speak, 
who  live  in  an  island  that  America  could  put  in  her  skirt  pocket  ; 
but  if  you  knew  how  our  mountains  go  and  how  our  rivers  run, 
you  would  not  talk  so.  Besides,  if  we  were  divided.  Slavery  on 
the  one  side  and  Liberty  on  the  other,  we  would  require  a  stand- 
ing army  to  watch  each  other.  No,  no  !  we  don't  want  the 
European  system  of  standing  armies  to  eat  up  a  tenth  of  the 
produce  of  the  land.  Besides,  standing  armies  are  dangerous 
things;  when  a  boy  gets  a  knife,  he's  aye  whittling  with  it." 
"  But  what  will  you  do  with  your  army  when  the  war  is  over  ?" 
"  When  our  work  is  done  in  the  field,  they  will  return  to  their 
counter,  their  college,  and  their  plough  from  whence  they  came, 
just  as  snow  melts  away  at  the  bidding  of  spring."  Another 
cried,  "  W^e  don't  sympathize  with  slavery,  but  we  go  for  the 
South  because  they  are  the  weaker  party."  "  Go  then  and 
sympathize  with  the  devil,  he  was  the  weakest  party  also  when  he 
rebelled  and  was  turned  out  of  heaven.  Yours  is  a  good  enough 
argument  for  school  boys  ten  years  of  age.  Hold  a  string 
between  them  and  see  who  is  the  strongest ;  but  when  the  princi- 
ples of  Liberty  and  Slavery  are  the  questions,  it  is  a  shame  for  a 
man  of  your  age  to  talk  that  way." 

Such  were  a  few  of  the  interruptions  and  questionings  which 
the  lecturer  had  to  encounter  during  the  first  half  hour  ;   the  rest 
of  the  time,  as  I  have  said,  he  had  it  all  his  own  way  ;  the  ques- 
tioners were  dumb.     At  last  the  voice   ceased,  and  the  people 
21 


3-40  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

dispersed — some  convinced,  others  staggered  or  disarmed,  most  to 
take  fresh  stock  of  their  convictions.  Mr.  Beecher  left  next  morn- 
ing for  Edinburgh  to  deUver  his  next  lecture  ;  from  thence  he 
proceeded  to  Liverpool,  Manchester,  and  London.  In  each  of  the 
cities  he  defended  the  principles  and  policy  of  the  American 
government  against  the  secessionists  vrith  marvellous  power  and 
tact.  The  British  people  began  to  see  the  case  more  clearly  ; 
the  press  became  more  subdued  as  it  prepared  to  wheel  round  ; 
and  the  Alabamas  and  blockade-runners  building  on  the  Mersey 
and  the  Clyde  were  suddenly  stopped  by  the  government  by 
orders  from  Whitehall. 

Mr.  Beecher's  days  in  Britain  were  now  numbered  ;  but  the 
time  was  well  employed.  Christian  people  of  all  denominations 
clustered  closely  around  him  ;  nothing  but  public  breakfasts  and 
evening  meetings  in  London,  Manchester,  and  Liverpool,  all  the 
way  down  to  the  day  of  embarkation  ;  even  the  morning  he  sailed  a 
public  breakfast  was  given  him,  where  only  a  few  days  before  he 
had  encountered  such  a  harassing  opposition.  Punch  had  a 
well-defined  cartoon  of  Beecher  in  his  oratorical  attitude  adminis- 
tering syrup  to  soothe  the  British  Lion.  Had  Beecher  only  come 
two  years  sooner,  there  would  have  been  little  sympathy  in 
Britain  for  the  slaveholding  South. 


X. 
By  rev.  CHARLES  HALL  EVEREST,  D.D., 

Of  Chicago,  III. 

No  more  notable  event  has  transpired  in  the  Christian  world 
during  the  last  fifty  years  than  the  advent  of  this  peculiarly  gifted 
and  brilliant  ambassador  for  Christ.  Sprung  from  a  stock  strong 
in  mind  and  facile  in  expression,  the  very  best  traits  seem  to  have 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND   REMINISCENCES.       341 

culminated  in  this  "  favorite  son,"  and  as  Abraham  Lincoln  once 
said  of  him,  that  "  he  possessed  the  most  productive  mind  of 
ancient  or  modern  times,"  so  we  may  add  that  he  possesses  a 
genius  for  moral  ideas  that  has  not  been  surpassed. 

In  vindication  of  this  eulogy  we  have  but  to  point  to  the  mani- 
fest effects  of  his  yet  unfinished  life.  The  American  pulpit  has 
been  emancipated  from  the  scholastic  hampers  that  were  compel- 
ling it  to  keep  pace  with  mediasval  rather  than  modern  thought 
and  method,  and  while  many  may  be  reluctant  to  credit  this 
liberty  to  the  influence  of  any  one  living  man,  the  fact  is  vStill 
patent,  that  the  putting  off  '*  Saul's  armor,"  and  the  going  forth 
with  the  simple  but  effective  slings  furnished  by  nature  and 
common-sense,  was  not  characteristic  of  the  American  ministry 
before  his  day.  If,  therefore,  the  presentation  of  the  simple  truth 
in  the  simple  language  of  the  day,  and  yet  with  the  eloquent  force 
that  inheres  in  the  vernacular,  and  if  this  pressing  of  the  claims 
of  Christ  in  the  tongue  in  which  men  were  born  has  produced 
Pentecostal  results,  we  affirm  that  under  God,  our  gratitude  should 
be  to  him  who  more  than  thirty  years  ago  struck  the  key-note  in 
Plymouth  pulpit. 

Any  innovation  like  this  referred  to — though  in  fact  it  was  but 
copying  the  Master  himself — introduced  by  a  man  less  strong  in 
brain  and  less  devoted  in  heart,  might  have  caused  confusion  and 
a  consequent  weakening  of  ministerial  influence,  but  the  experi- 
ment of  playing  upon  all  the  strings  of  the  human  soul  boldly, 
and  summoning  the  whole  man  daily  to  its  best  activity  for 
Christ's  sake  as  the  highest  expression  of  godliness,  was  in  his 
own  hands  so  large  and  permanent  a  success,  that  it  swept  the 
land,  and  scores  of  young  men  who  had  been  trained  to  fit  and 
polish  creeds  forgot  the  lessons  of  the  schools,  and  gave  them- 
selves to  the  more  glorious  work  of  forming  characters  and  inspir- 
ing lives. 

Mr.  Beecher's  popularity  has  been  so  remarkable,   that  many 


342  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

have  assumed  that  much  of  his  zeal  was  for  the  sake  of  the  incense 
that  was  offered  to  his  genius,  and  that  the  natural  love  of  power 
impelled  him  to  seek  the  greatest  possible  eminence.  But  a 
personal  acquaintance  of  more  than  twenty  years  has  given  me  a 
far  different  estimate  of  his  motives  and  ambitions.  In  giving 
private  counsel,  such  as  he  would  naturally  impart  to  me  as  a 
member  of  his  church,  as  one  who  had  been  ordained  to  the 
ministry  in  that  church,  and  under  his  own  auspices,  and  also 
allied  to  him  by  blood,  the  impression  always  abiding  with  me 
vpas,  that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  "the  chiefest  of  ten  thou- 
sand "  to  him  ;  that  he  was  more  solicitous  for  his  glory  than 
any  other,  and  that  in  an  eminent  degree  the  love  of  Christ 
constrained  him  in  all  his  life  work. 

This  view  of  the  depth  of  his  devotion  to  the  Master,  and  his 
conscious  reliance  upon  him,  was  most  forcibly  conveyed  to  me 
soon  after  the  memorable  "  trial  "  through  which  he  passed.  I 
was  journeying  to  New  York  on  the  Hudson  River  Road,  when 
at  Peekskill  Mr.  Beecher  entered  the  car,  and  taking  a  seat  by 
me  was  my  companion  to  the  city.  In  the  course  of  the  conver- 
sation, that  almost  immediately  drifted  to  the  malignant  trial 
referred  to,  I  was  expressing  the  deep  satisfaction  that  all  Chris- 
tian men  felt,  that  the  attempts  to  stain  his  name  and  impair  his 
influence  for  good  had  been  futile,  when  he  turned  suddenly  and 
faced  me,  and  with  a  most  impressive  manner  said,  "  Everest,  my 
deliverance  is  no  mystery  to  me  ;  the  whole  case  to  my  mind  is 
summed  up  in  those  words  of  Jesus  to  Peter,  '  Simon,  Satan  hath 
desired  to  have  you  that  he  may  sift  you  as  wheat,  but  I  have 
prayed  for  thee,'  and  the  same  Master  prayed  for  me." 

The  influence  of  such  a  fervid,  richly  endowed,  and  yet 
consecrated  man  cannot  be  measured  in  its  relation  to  the  country 
as  well  as  the  church.  The  services  rendered  to  the  cause  of 
humanity  in  the  great  anti-slavery  struggle,  and  to  patriotism 
both  in  this  land  and  across  the  sea,  during  the  fiery  days  of  war, 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      343 

have  their  record  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  need  no  enumer- 
ation here.  No  good  word  or  work  during  the  last  half  century 
has  failed  to  receive  his  earnest  and  eloquent  endorsement. 

No  sketch,  however  brief,  of  Mr.  Beecher,  can  afford  to  omit  a 
reference  to  that  wealth  of  good  nature  and  sociability  that  render 
his  words  as  fascinating  in  private  circles  as  in  the  great  assem- 
blage. On  a  day  of  surpassing  interest  to  me  some  twenty  years 
ago,  it  being  my  wedding-day,  I  met  the  noon  train  at  Hartford, 
Connecticut,  to  welcome  and  escort  Mr.  Beecher  to  the  bride's 
residence.  As  most  young  men  under  similar  circumstances 
would  have  done,  I  went  to  the  upper  end  of  the  depot,  so  as  to 
appear  collected  and  not  too  eager  for  his  coming.  But  to  my 
dismay  the  sturdy  form  for  which  I  watched  did  not  appear,  and 
it  was  only  after  several  hours  that  I  learned  that  he  had  jumped 
from  the  train  before  it  entered  the  station,  and  not  finding  me, 
and  supposing  that  the  law  of  the  State  would  not  permit  him,  a 
non-resident,  to  marry  me — though  the  obnoxious  law  had  been 
repealed — he  had  gone  to  his  sister's,  Mrs,  Stowe.  Thither  I 
hastened,  and  finding  the  much-desired  parson,  he  met  me  with 
the  cool  proposition  to  take  one  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  daughters,  and 
thus  save  time  and  a  long  ride  down  to  the  city.  "  But, "  he 
finally  said,  "  if  you  really  have  a  i~)reference  for  the  other  girl, 
I  will  go  down  with  you."  I  had  a  preference,  and  the  short  but 
beautiful  service  that  made  that  winter  evening  forever  memorable 
to  me  was  declared  by  Mr  Beecher  to  a  friend  to  have  been 
"  the  best  piece  of  ecclesiastical  work  "  he  ever  did,  in  which 
opinion,  I  may  frankly  say,  I  most  heartily  concur. 

Long  may  the  life  that  has  ministered  beside  the  altars  of  joy 
and  sorrow  for  many  hearts  be  continued  to  illumine  the  earth 
that  it  has  so  signally  blessed,  and  sad  will  be  the  day  for  the 
earth  when  that  life  shall  be  received  "  into  the  glory  that  shall  be 
revealed." 


344  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 


XI. 

By   rev.  W.  BURNET   WRIGHT, 

Of  Boston,  Massachusetts. 

Let  me  say  at  once  that  I  wholly  houor  and  love  Mr.  Beecher, 
and  have  long  counted  his  friendship  among  the  best  of  my  bless- 
ings. For  some  this  fact  will  take  away  all  value  from  anything  I 
may  say  about  him,  since  there  are  those  who  never  trust  the  fidelity 
of  a  portrait  unless  it  has  been  painted  by  an  enemy  of  the  man 
it  pretends  to  represent,  or  at  least  by  one  who  can  view  him  with 
a  stranger's  eye.  But  I  believe  a  man  is  never  truly  known  except 
to  his  friends.  Even  if  that  were  not  so,  the  question  would 
remain,  "What  made  them  his  friends?"  Until  that  is  an- 
swered, the  part  of  the  man  best  worth  our  knowing  must  remain 
unknown. 

I  will  tell,  therefore,  as  well  as  I  can,  what  has  made  me  love 
and  honor  Mr.  Beecher.  In  the  sermon  which  he  preached  at 
my  installation  over  Berkeley  Street  Church,  he  remarked  that  he 
had  rocked  my  cradle,  I  have  also  heard  it  said  that  when  he  was 
studying  at  Lane  Seminary,  he  named  my  father's  house  the 
*' Beecher  Tavern. "  But  I  do  not  remember  ever  seeing  him 
until  my  middle  year  at  Andover,  and  before  that  time  I  never 
heard  or  read  a  sermon  or  lecture  from  him. 

He  had  just  finished  speaking  in  Tremont  Temple,  and  v/as 
surrounded  by  a  host  of  people  offering  their  congratulations. 
I  stood  outside  the  press  holding  a  note  of  introduction,  and 
hesitating  whether  to  present  it  or  wait  for  a  better  opportunity, 
when  he  stepped  toward  me,  took  the  note  from  my  hand,  read 
my  name,  and  exclaimed  :  "  Are  you  a  son  of  Nathaniel  Wright  ?" 
"Yes,  sir."  "Then  you  ought  not  to  be  bringing  intro- 
ductions to    me,  but  giving    them   to    other  people  !"      I  think 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      345 

he  tad  not  seen  my  father  for  twenty  years,  and  they  had 
not  corresponded  during  the  interval  ;  yet  he  threw  so  much 
genuine  regard  into  that  single  sentence  that  I  instantly  felt  at 
home  with  the  great  man  I  had  a  moment  before  been  afraid  to 
approach,  I  had  been  thinking,  "  A  cat  may  look  at  a  king." 
He  made  me  feel  how  much  better  than  a  cat  is  a  boy  to  his 
father's  friend. 

The  next  day  we  went  together  to  his  home  in  Brooklyn.  In- 
stead of  destroying  his  interest  in  the  friends  of  his  early  years, 
his  long  absence  from  the  West  appeared  to  have  increased  his  love 
for  them.  He  seemed  to  remember  more  Cincinnati  people  than 
I  had  ever  known.  He  asked  about  them  ;  he  described  them 
with  a  vividness  and  accuracy  which  made  me  feel  as  if  he  were 
living  there  and  had  been  away  only  on  a  visit.  The  impression 
made  upon  me  then  of  the  intense  personal  interest  he  feels  in 
people,  of  his  never  forgetting  anybody  he  has  once  known,  of  his 
always  dwelling  upon  their  lovely  traits  and  forgetting  their  un- 
lovely ones,  of  his  immense  capacity  of  liking  even  those  whom 
no  one  else  can  like,  has  been  steadily  deepening  during  a  friend- 
ship of  more  than  twenty  years. 

This  faculty  of  seeing  things  to  love  in  individuals  and  of  taking 
them  into  his  personal  regard,  seems  to  me  the  top  root  of  his  in- 
fluence. He  sways  the  masses  and  wins  their  heart  just  because  to 
him  there  are  no  masses.  He  never  lumps  men  nor  thinks  of  them 
in  bulk.  He  cares  nothing  for  "  being  in  general,"  but  every- 
thing for  particular  beings.  His  preaching  reaches  all  men  because 
it  is  never  aimed  at  all  men,  but  at  some  special  John  or  James  or 
William  whom  he  knows  and  loves.  When  the  thousand  other 
Johns  or  Williams  listen,  each  feels  that  he  is  personally  addressed 
by  one  who  loves  without  having  seen  him.  Thus  the  power  of 
individualizing  men  and  establishing  a  direct  relation  with  .each  one 
of  a  multitude  comes  from  his  interest  in  individuals.  The  reflex 
of  it  appears  in  the  way  in  v/hich  people  generally  in  speaking  of 


346  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

him  call  liitn  by  Lis  Christian  name,  as  if  they  felt  he  belonged  to 
them  as  a  member  of  their  family,  I  can  recall  but  three  among 
the  great  spiritual  teachers  of  this  generation  who  have  inspired 
this  sentiment.  Men  speak  of  "Mr.  Spurgeon,"  "Dean  Stan- 
ley," "  Dr.  Parker,"  They  say  John  Henry  Newman  to  distin- 
guish him  from  another  Newman,  and  "James  Marti neau"  to 
show  tbey  do  not  mean  his  sister.  But  they  say  George  MacDonald, 
Phillips  Brooks,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  because  they  feel  instinct- 
ively toward  these  men  as  I  felt  when  the  warm  grasp  held  my 
hand  in  Tremont  Temple. 

This  vivid  interest  in  persons  is  the  source  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
power  of  putting  people  at  their  best  in  his  society.  Some  great 
men  are  in  this  respect  like  yard-sticks.  Without  in  the  least 
meaning  to  do  so,  they  make  you  feel  that  you  are  indubitably 
but  half  an  inch  high.  Other  still  greater  men  act  upon  you  as 
heat  acts  upon  mercury.  You  do  not  measure  yourself  by  them, 
nor  once  consider  whether  you  are  large  or  small,  but  you  feel 
that  you  are  growing  larger  for  being  with  them.  You  think  your 
best  thoughts,  say  your  brightest  things,  feel  your  noblest  impulses 
in  their  presence.  These  men  do  not  flatter  your  pride,  for  pride 
always  puts  one  at  his  worst.  But  they  see  in  you  more  than  you 
thought  was  there,  and  presently  it  comes  out  and  justifies  their 
insight.     So  spring  affects  plants. 

This  is  the  source  of  the  lifting  power  of  Mr.  Beecher's  minis- 
try. The  Master  could  save  the  world,  because  he  saw  in  the 
worst  men  more  to  love  than  others  saw  in  the  best.  The  eye 
which  discerned  affection  in  denying  Peter  and  womanhood  in  the 
daughter  of  shame,  raised  Peter  to  repentance  and  Magdalen  to 
purity.  But  the  great  world  is  only  many  millions  of  sinners 
essentially  like  these. 

What  has  often  amazed  me  in  Mr,  Beecher  is  the  immense  ex- 
tent and  accuracy  of  his  information.  How  he  has  gained  it  I  can- 
not say.     He  never  studies  as  other  men  do.      He  reads  slowly. 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      347 

indeed  I  count  him  the  slowest  reader  alive.  Slow  reading  often 
makes  deep  thinkers,  but  rarely  has  it  produced  broad  scholars. 
But  Mr.  Beecher's  knowledge  of  books  is  prodigious. 

I  remember  watching  his  skilful  play  on  the  croquet  ground 
one  summer  afternoon,  when  I  had  for  some  months  been  study- 
ing Herbert  Spencer.  AVhen  the  game  was  done,  in  reply  to  a 
question  I  asked  him,  he  gave  me  an  account  of  Spencer  and  his 
writings  with  a  wealth  of  biographical  details  and  a  knowledge  of 
the  man's  entire  system,  which  would  have  been  remarkable  in  a 
carefully  prepared  and  written  lecture.  I  have  often  tested  him 
in  the  same  way  on  other  themes,  only  to  find  him  equally  in- 
formed and  ready.  It  has  mattered  little  what  subject  was 
broached  in  conversation,  he  seems  to  have  made  it  a  specialty  ; 
science,  literature,  art,  politics,  theology — in  each  he  is  equally  at 
home.  In  his  private  conversation  his  speech  is  as  perfect  in  qual- 
ity of  thought,  in  richness  of  illustration,  and  in  precision  of 
statement  as  are  his  public  utterances.  This  is  true  of  only  one 
other  man  I  have  known,  and  that  man,  Mr.  Phillips,  is  the  least 
like  him  of  all  orators  that  can  be  named.  One  may  spend  a  day 
in  converse  with  either  of  these  men,  then  listen  to  the  lecture  or 
sermon,  and  feel  that  the  conversation  was  fully  equal  to  the 
speech.  I  believe  that  Mr.  Beecher's  finest  sayings  have  been 
spoken  in  private.  The  slightest  tinge  of  personal  vanity  would 
render  this  impossible.  I  think  it  also  comes  from  their  interest 
in  individuals.  For  to  each  of  these  men,  accustomed  to  the  ap- 
plause of  multitudes,  a  solitary  child  appears  an  audience  worthy  of 
all  his  powers. 

A  distinctive  characteristic  of  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching  is  his 
fidelity  in  the  use  of  Scripture.  He  has  been  often  thought 
careless  in  this  respect.  It  has  been  said  of  him — among  others 
by  Mr.  Barton,  I  believe — that  he  takes  verses  to  head  his  sermons 
through  habit,  and  then  proceeds  to  say  whatever  he  likes  without 
regard  to  text  or  context.      No  judgment  could  be  more  false. 


348  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Of  all  preacliers  known  to  me  Mr.  Beecher  sticks  most  closely 
to  Ills  text — not  to  its  letter,  but  to  its  truth.  Others  may  hold 
higher  theories  of  inspiration,  but  a  careful  examination  of  his 
sermons  will  convince  a  competent  critic  that  no  other  preacher 
treats  the  Bible  more  reverently. 

His  method  is  to  get  the  truth  contained  in  bis  text  as  accurately 
as  he  can,  and  then  apply  that  and  nothing  else  in  whatever  way 
may  be  most  effective  for  the  guidance  of  men.  In  this  respect 
Robertson  approaches  him  most  nearly.  The  sermons  of  these 
two  rr^en  come  out  of  their  texts,  and  rarely  are  read  into  them. 
Perhaps  among  the  celebrated  preachers  of  this  generation  Mr. 
Spurgeon  and  Mr.  Moody  hold  the  liighest  theory  of  verbal  in- 
spiration. Yet  I  believe  any  single  year's  preaching  of  either 
will  furnish  more  examples  of  reckless  dealing  with  Scripture, 
more  instances  of  texts  explored  as  clothes-lines  on  which  to  hang 
the  disconnected  things  they  happen  to  think,  than  can  be  gathered 
from  all  the  pulpit  work  of  Mr.  Beecher's  life. 

I  fear  I  have  already  passed  the  limite  your  courtesy  has  offered 
me,  and  will  therefore  close  by  recording  one  remark  which  illus- 
trates that  quality  in  Mr.  Beecher  which  I  mentioned  first,  and 
which  seems  to  me  the  noblest  sentence  I  ever  heard  him  utter. 

Some  years  ago  when  it  was  harder  for  me  than  it  is  now  to 
make  due  allowance  for  the  weaknesses  of  men,  I  was  alone  with 
him.  A  treacherous  blow  had-  been  dealt  him  by  one  who  had 
long  enjoyed  his  intimate  confidence  and  cordial  friendship.  He 
was  then  passing  through  perhaps  the  heaviest  trial  of  his  life.  I 
was  aflame  with  indignation  at  what  seemed  to  me  then  and  does 
now  a  most  deliberate  and  malignant  treachery,  and  asked  as  men 
ask  when  they  mean  to  get  new  fuel  for  a  fire  already  too  fierce, 
"  "WHiat  do  you  think  of  that  man  now?'^  He  raised  his  eyes 
to  mine.  They  were  moist,  but  not  a  spark  of  anger  was  in  his 
face,  and  his  voice  was  softer  and  gentler  than  I  had  ever  heard  it, 
as  he  replied,  "  I  have  been  forced  to  bury  him."     I  have  never 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      349 

heard  him  alhide  in  any  way  to  that  person  since,  and  it  wonld 
still  be  impossible  for  mc  to  tell  him  my  honest  opinion  of  his 
^*  buried  friend." 


XII. 
By   rev.  E.  p.  PUTNAM,  D.D., 

Unitarian  Pastor,  Brooklyn,  N.    Y. 

Too  much  importance  has  been  attached  by  many  to  Mr.  O. 
B.  Frothingham's  utterances  in  relation  to  the  radicalism  of  the 
day.  Though  his  followers  have  become  very  much  excited  in 
consequence  of  what  he  has  said  and  done,  and  have  pronounced 
him  "  old"  or  "  sick"  or  "  weak"  or  "  aristocratic"  or  "  treacher- 
ous," it  does  not  yet  appear  that  he  has  really  gone  back  from  his 
former  position,  however  he  may  for  the  moment  call  to  his 
friends,  "  Halt  /"  But  even  had  he  essentially  changed  his  views, 
he  is  but  one  among  many  cultivated  men  of  the  land  who  are 
drifting  about  amid  the  currents  of  religious  opinion  and  Specula- 
tion, and  the  extent  of  whose  influence  is  altogether  a  matter  of 
uncertainty.  The  only  significance  of  his  new  attitude  is  that, 
■with  a  multitude  of  others,  he  seems  to  have  come  to  a  point  be- 
yond which  he  cannot  very  well  go  in  the  direction  of  doubt  and 
denial,  let  who  will  wander  farther.  What  is  of  main  interest  to 
ns  is  that  hundreds  and  thousands  are  beginning  with  him  to  feel 
that  they  are  going  nowhere  and  that  it  is  high  time  to  stop,  if 
not  to  retrace  their  steps.  But  one  thing  is  sure,  they  will  not  in 
any  event  return  to  the  old  creeds  and  systems  of  a  bygone  cen- 
tury. These  have  been  demolished  and  pulverized  beyond  the 
possibility  of  reconstruction.  Many  agencies  have  co-operated  to 
bring  about  the  desired  and  needed  result,  many  famous  preachers 
and  many   powerful  books,    popular  education,    the   progress   of 


350  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

science,  increased  means  of  travel,  and  intercommunication,  and 
what  is  commonly  called  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Of  all  the  men  of 
our  country  who  have  wrought  to  this  end,  I  doubt  whether  any 
one  has  done  more  effective  service  than  Rev.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher.  His  influence  has  been  all  the  more  potent  that  he  has 
stood  and  accomplished  his  work  within  the  lines  of  the  orthodox 
church,  never  going  quite  so  far  as  to  separate  himself  from  the 
communion  and  fellowship  in  which  he  was  born  and  reared,  and 
yet  going  quite  far  enough  to  gain  ample  vantage-ground  for  the 
most  damaging  assaults  upon  the  old  faith.  Through  his  long  and 
remarkable  ministry  of  more  than  forty  years,  he  has  so  broken, 
one  by  one,  with  the  old  evangelical  doctrines,  that  his  orthodoxy 
has  come  to  be  a  radically  different  thing  from  the  orthodoxy  of 
his  celebrated  father,  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher.  Not  alone  as  a 
preacher  to  a  vast  congregation,  but  also  as  an  editor  of  various 
widely-circulated  weekly  papers,  a  popular  and  industrious  lecturer 
in  many  parts  of  the  country,  and  a  prodigious  and  untiring  worker 
in  the  world  of  politics,  philanthropy,  education,  and  general  liter- 
ature, he  has  constantly  exerted  his  great  influence  in  stimulating 
thought,'  in  setting  men's  minds  free  from  ancient  errors,  in  in- 
culcating new  and  nobler  ideas,  in  humanizing  religion,  and  in 
making  the  churches  more  and  more  recognize  love  as  the  essential 
and  eternal  element  of  it,  and  in  enthroning  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man  as  the  great  and  paramount 
principles  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  Dean  Stanley,  during 
his  late  visit  to  this  country,  acknowledged  that  Mr.  Beecher, 
more  than  any  other  man,  had  taught  him  in  all  its  fulness  the 
truth  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  The  orthodoxy  of  fifty  years 
ago  was  hard  and  cold  and  dead.  The  orthodoxy  of  to-day,  as 
modified  and  changed  by  Mr.  Beecher,  is  warm  and  vital,  and 
finds  readier  access  to  the  hearts  of  the  common  people.  Unita- 
rianism  seemed  incompetent  for  this  work,  not  because  it  had  not 
the  truth  as  i^  is  in  Jesus,  but  from  other  causes  which  are  sufB- 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      351 

ciently  well  understood.  What  the  masses  would  not  hear  from 
trained  and  cultured  heretics  of  Harvard  or  Boston,  they  were 
quite  willing  to  hear  and  also  to  accept  from  one  of  unsurpassed 
genius  and  eloquence,  who  belonged  to  the  old  communion,  but 
who  yet  was  instinct  with  sympathy  for  all,  and  who  presented  re- 
ligion in  more  engaging  and  attractive  forms  than  she  had  worn 
for  them  before.  Through  all  these  years  his  word  has  gone  out 
into  all  the  world  and  found  its  way  into  myriads  of  churches  and 
homes,  liberalizing  thought  and  creed,  inspiring  more  of  love  to 
God  and  love  to  man,  and  diffusing  everywhere  a  more  genial  light 
and  life.  "Who  can  measure  the  extent  to  which,  under  such 
kindlier  influences,  the  iron  systems  of  the  past  have  yielded  and 
melted  away  ?  No  mere  processes  of  logic  could  have  done  it. 
Mr.  Beecher  is  not,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  a  logician  or  a 
theologian.  In  his  presentations  of  truth  and  doctrine,  he  has 
often,  as  it  seems  to  us,  been  inconsistent  with  himself.  One  of 
his  emotional  nature,  vivid  imagination,  playful  fancy,  and  inex- 
haustible wit  and  humor,  could  hardly  be  otherwise,  while  living 
so  active  a  life  and  called  to  such  multifarious  tasks.  Nevertheless, 
his  has  been  a  persistent  force,  and  it  would  not  have  been  greater, 
but  less,  had  bis  more  nicely  harmonized  theological  belief  been 
purchased  at  the  expense  of  the  Shakespearian  breadth  and  variety 
of  his  mental  and  moral  endowments.  The  contributions  which 
he  has  made  to  the  religious  thought  and  life  of  the  world  will 
pass  into  the  church  of  the  future,  and  will  still  grow  to  more  and 
more  when  he  himself  has  passed  from  earth. 


[ 


352  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 


XIII. 
By  rev.  a.  II.  BRADFORD, 

Pastor  of  Congregational  tViurch,  Montclair,  New  Jersey, 

My  remembrance  of  Mr.  Beecher  reaches  back  to  the  old 
"  abolition  days."  Reared  in  the  home  of  an  abolitionist,  it 
was  inevitable  that  so  conspicuous  a  worker  in  the  cause  of  reform 
as  the  Brooklyn  pastor  should  become  to  me  a  kind  of  idol. 
From  that  day  to  this  I  have  admired  his  genius,  been  thrilled  by 
his  rare  and  glorious  eloquence,  and  stimulated  and  strengthened  by 
his  presentations  of  spiritual  truth,  so  practical  and  penetrating. 
My  personal  acquaintance  with  Mr,  Beecher  has  been  slight, 
although  from  the  frequency  with  which  I  have  supplied  his 
pulpit,  and  the  number  of  Plymouth  Church  people  in  my  own 
church,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  I  knew  him  more  intimately  than  I 
do. 

Of  Mr.  Beecher  as  an  orator  there  can  be  but  one  opinion.  He 
is  the  most  perfect  master  of  eloquence,  in  my  opinion,  that  this 
country  has  ever  produced.  Others  have  been  as  witty,  as  pathetic, 
as  convincing,  as  persuasive  as  he,  but  no  other  American  ever 
possessed  all  these  qualities  in  such  harmonious  combination. 
I  well  remember  a  remark  made  in  my  presence  by  Dr.  W.  M. 
Taylor,  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  when  several  of  us  were 
returning  from  the  installation  of  Rev.  S.  H.  Virgin  in  New 
York.  After  telling  us  about  Mr.  Beecher's  speeches  in  England 
during  the  war,  and  of  one  great  tussel  which  he  had  had  with  a 
mob  which  had  tried  to  break  up  one  of  his  meetings,  Dr.  Taylor 
declared  with  his  peculiar  emphasis,  "  I  tell  you  I  believe  there 
has  not  been  such  eloquence  in  the  world  since  Demosthenes." 
Any  one  who  listened  to  Mr.  Beecher's  magnificent  address  in 
the  Madison  Square  Church  during  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  in 


I 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      353 

1873,  will  never  forget  that  incomparable  effort,  and  will  not  hes- 
itate to  accept  the  New  York  pastor's  estimate  of  the  Brooklyn 
pastor's  eloquence. 

The  most  thrilling  words  I  ever  heard  from  man  were  some  of 
the  short  speeches  made  by  him  during  the  memorable  council  in 
Plymouth  Church  in  1876.  At  times,  as  he  spoke,  the  heads  of 
those  who  listened  bowed  before  the  rush  of  his  uttered  feeling  as 
a  field  of  grain  bends  when  a  great  wind  sweeps  over  it. 

As  a  preacher,  Mr.  Beecher  is  most,  at  home  ;  and,  for  one,  I 
wish  he  would  stay  at  home  more.  Wlio  could  lead  a  revival  with 
such  persuasion  as  he  ?  Who  could  reach  all  classes  with  convic- 
tions so  readily  as  he  ?  I  always  feel  as  if  Mr.  Beecher' s  lectur- 
ing were  a  waste  of  power — like  a  man  loading  a  columbiad  to 
shoot  a  swallow. 

Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  has  classified  four  great  American  preachers 
as  follows.  He  says  :  Dr.  John  Hall  is  expository  ;  Dr.  Williana 
M.  Taylor  is  practical  ;  Phillips  Brooks  is  experimental  ;  Henry- 
Ward  Beecher  is  philosophical. 

That  Dr.  Abbott's  classification  is  correct  I  have  no  doubt,  and 
yet  Mr,  Beecher's  preaching  seems  to  me  to  be  expository, 
experimental,  and  practical,  as  well  as  philosophical.  I  cannot 
understand  how  any  one  who  has  heard  Mr.  Spurgeon  can  for  a 
moment  compare  him  with  the  Plymouth  pastor.  It  is  like  com- 
paring Mt.  Blanc  with  its  foothills.  Mr.  Spurgeon  is  a  great  man 
— a  worker,  an  organizer,  a  preacher,  but  he  never  dreams  of  the 
altitudes  of  thought  and  utterance  in  which  Mr.  Beecher  con- 
stantly dwells.  Canon  Farrar  is  certainly  one  of  the  first  of  living 
preachers  :  but  if  any  one  is  desirous  of  an  illustration  of  the 
superior  excellence  of  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching,  let  him  read  first 
Farrar's  sermon  on  "  Eternal  Hope,"  and  then  Mr.  Beecher's 
sermon  on  "  The  Background  of  Mystery."  The  contrast  is 
V9,st  and  instantly  recognized. 

But,  much  as  I  admire  Henry  Ward  Beecher  as  a  preacher,  I 


354  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

cannot  be  blind  to  what  seems  to  me  to  be  serious  defects.  More 
than  any  man  I  Ivnow  in  the  evangelical  pulpit  does  he  seem  to  me 
to  occupy  himself  with  making  men  of  straw  for  the  purpose  of 
knocking  them  down.  Often  in  hearing  him  preach  you  begin  to 
wonder  if  he  does  not  consider  "  Mediaeval  Theology  "  as  a  roaring 
lion  which,  active  and  pernicious  as  the  devil  himself,  is  going 
around  to  destroy  all  good.  But  when  I  ask  myself,  Where  shall 
I  find  that  which  Mr.  Beecher  has  caricatured,  I  know  not 
which  way  to  look.  This  is  a  fault  which  greatly  detracts  from 
the  .effectiveness  of  his  preaching,  and  which  rouses  needless 
antagonisms.  At  times  also  lie  uses  a  bluntness  of  expression 
which  borders  upon  coarseness  of  suggestion,  in  a  way  that  helps 
'no  one,  and  troubles,  with  cause,  those  who  are  sensitive  about 
public  utterances  which  savor  of  indelicacy.  But  these  and  other 
things  are  only  spots  on  the  sun.  I  am  not  a  blind  follower  of 
Mr.  Beecher,  but  I  am  stimulated  and  inspired  by  him  as  by  no 
living  preacher.  And  what  an  audience  that  man's  words  reach! 
On  the  borders  of  Puget  Sound,  in  1874,  I  met  a  former  parish- 
ioner of  his  from  Indianapolis.  I  said  to  him,  "  Well,  what  do 
you  think  of  your  old  pastor  now  ?"  He  put  his  hand  in  his 
pocket,  pulled  out  two  or  three  copies  of  Plymouth  Pulpit,  and 
answered,  "  What  does  that  look  like  ?"  Soon  after  that  I  met  a 
man  way  up  on  the  Snake  River.  His  home  was  in  Idaho.  I 
asked  him  about  his  church  privileges.  "  Oh,"  said  he,  "  we 
have  no  churches  up  there  on  the  Palouse,  but  a  few  of  us  get 
together  and  read  the  Plymouth  Pulpit,  and  we  have  pretty  good 
preaching,  I  tell  you." 

One  other  thing  I  will  mention.  In  my  intercourse  with 
Plymouth  Church  people,  I  have  noticed  that  while  they  are  de- 
votedly loyal  to  Mr.  Beecher  as  a  man  and  a  minister,  they  never 
hesitate  to  express  dissent  from  his  teaching.  He  has  trained  men 
and  women  to  do  their  own  thinking  rather  than  to  think  as  he 
does.     Thus  does  he  develop  strong  and  independent  characters. 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       355 

George  Ebers  closes  his  historical  novel,  "  Homo  Sum,"  with 
the  epitaph  on  the  tomb  of  Petms,  one  of  the  principal  characters 
of  his  story.  It  is  as  follows  :  "  Pray  for  me  a  miserable  man — 
for  I  was  a  man, ' '  So  must  we  say  of  all,  Mr.  Beecher  among 
the  rest.  All  of  us  are  men  with  human  faculties  and  human 
frailties.  But  among  men  whom  it  has  been  ray  good  fortune  to 
know,  among  preachers  whom  it  has  been  my  privilege  to  hear, 
for  wealth  of  manhood  and  for  power  to  move  and  mould  men,  I 
know  not  who  to  place  beside  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 


XIV. 
By  PtEV.  ALBEPtT  H.  HEATH, 

Pastor  of  First  Congregational  Church,  New  Bedford,  Massachusetts. 

Mr.  Beecher  is  a  man  who  excites  such  a  variety  of  feelings  in 
those  who  come  under  his  influence  that  it  seems  difficult  to  set 
down  briefly  your  impression  of  him.  He  is  a  many-sided  man. 
He  is  a  full  man.  I  had  almost  said  an  overflowing  man.  He 
absolutely  overwhelms  you  with  the  multifarious  manifestations 
of  the  power  that  is  in  him.  You  read  him,  you  study  him, 
and  you  think  you  know  him,  when  lo  !  some  sudden  turn  reveals 
things  of  which  you  had  not  dreamed.     He  is  a  kind  of  human 

_  kaleidoscope  at  every  turn  falling  into  new  and  beautiful  shapes. 

■  I  was  a  boy  in  college  just  beginning  to  think  on  religious 
themes  when  Mr.  Beecher  was  at  the  very  zenith  of  his  glory. 
Every  sentence  that  dropped  from  his  fruitful  lips  was  printed 
and  read  by  the  millions.  I  read  and  admired.  I  sat  as  a  willing, 
a  charmed  pupil  at  his  feet.  At  one  time  he  held  me  heart  and 
brain  in  his  sweet  thrall  ;  I  loved  him.  His  words  came  to  me 
like  dew  to  thirsty  ground.  He  satisfied  me — he  filled  me — he 
flooded  me.  Under  the  shadow  of  his  luxuriant  thought  I 
22 


356  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

dreamed  and  was  happy.  Nor  did  I  dream  only.  I  was  lifted — 
inspired — moved  to  nobler  action.  He  gave  me  new  views  of 
God  and  heaven.  Christ  and  his  cross  as  garlanded  by  his  mag- 
nificent speech  had  new  attractions  for  me.  He  also  interpreted 
human  nature  to  me.  He  gave  me  clearer  views  of  religious 
experience.  There  was  a  "  sweet  reasonableness  "  in  his  por- 
trayal of  the  Christian  life  that  won  me  mightily.  Such  was  the 
influence  of  Mr.  Beecher's  printed  words  upon  me  when  a  boy. 
But  all  this  was  much  intensified  when  I  came  under  his  personal 
infl,uence  as  a  preacher.  Sitting  in  the  aisle  chairs  of  old  Plym- 
outh Church,  as  I  did  a  portion  of  one  year,  a  stranger — never 
knowing  a  member  of  the  church  and  never  passing  a  vp^ord  with 
Mr.  Beecher  himself,  yet  it  was  a  privilege,  "  quite  on  the  verge  of 
heaven,"  for  me,  a  home-sick  boy,  a  waif  in  the  great  city,  to  sit 
for  an  hour  under  the  copious  rain  of  Plymouth  Pulpit.  As  I 
said,  I  did  not  know  Mr.  Beecher  in  those  days,  nor  did  he  know 
me.  I  was  but  one  among  thousands  who  flocked  to  hear  him, 
and  yet,  somehow,  I  came  to  feel  that  he  had  a  personal  interest  in 
me,  and  that  he  was  my  friend.  It  seemed  almost  as  if  there  had 
grown  up  between  our  souls  a  friendly  intimacy.  He  preached 
to  me  and  prayed  for  me.  He  was  my  personal  friend.  I 
wonder  if  others  had  similar  experiences. 

But  as  I  look  back  to-night  to  those  favored  days,  I  am  of  the 
opinion  that  it  was  not  his  .sermons  that  helped  me  most,  but  his 
prayers.  His  sermons  touched  me  like  shocks  from  a  spiritual 
battery,  but  his  prayers  were  like  the  very  breathing  of  the  Spirit 
of  God — his  prayers  rose  on  a  "  bold  and  easy  wing,"  and  they 
seemed  to  bear  jou  on  their  ample  pinions  to  the  very  foot  of  the 
throne.  I  think  few  men  have  been  able  so  to  open  the  window 
of  heaven  and  talk  with  God  face  to  face.  Few  ministers  have 
been  able  to  make  their  congregations  feel  that  the  very  heavens 
were  raining  mercy  upon  their  bowed  heads. 

To  do  these  two  things,  viz.,  to  preach  and  pray,  it  seems  to 


Across  the   Rocky   Mountains. 


"  Eyes  and   Ears." 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      359 

me  that  Mr.  Beecher  lias  had  a  life-long  and  special  commission 
from  Heaven.  I  measure  him  not  by  the  standard  of  literary 
criticism,  though  the  consummate  beauty  of  his  style  is  acknowl- 
edged by  all.  I  think  not  of  him  as  a  theologian,  though  he  has 
given  theology  to  the  masses,  making  it  intelligible  and  palatable 
to  the  popular  mind  more  than  any  other  man  of  his  time.  He 
is  not  to  me  a  logician,  though  I  think  those  that  have  crossed 
swords  with  him  have  not  found  him  weak  in  argument.  Nor  do 
I  think  of  him  as  an  orator,  though  I  have  heard  him  -when  he 
seemed  to  touch  the  third  heaven  of  eloquent  speech,  yet  it  is  as 
a  preacher  and  a  priest  making  intercession  for  the  people  that  he 
will  ever  stand  before  me.  I  believe  this  will  be  his  place  in  his- 
tory. He  is  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  pointing 
with  graceful  speech  to  the  Lamb  of  God  who  taketh  away  the 
sins  of  the  world.  He  has  voiced  God's  mercy,  I  feel,  more  grandly 
than  any  other  preacher  of  his  time,  and  he  has  also  voiced  the 
want  of  the  human  heart  before  the  throne  of  God's  mercy  with 
equal,  if  not  greater  power.  I  believe  that  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
was  called  of  God  and  endowed  and  inspired  to  preach  and  to 
pray,  and  most  grandly  has  he  fulfilled  his  calling. 

I  have  always  loved  him  for  the  good  he  has  done  me.  I  have 
many  times  been  unable  to  beheve  with  him,  but  I  have  always 
believed  in  him  ;  never  for  a  moment  hare  I  doubted  him.  When 
the  clouds  were  darkest  yet  my  faith  never  wavered  ;  I  could 
not,  I  would  not  think  him  untrue,  and  with  thousands,  I  thank 
God  that  hisaflaictions,  long-pressing  and  severe,  have  only  ripened 
him  and  mellowed  and  enriched  him  and  made  him  a  tenderer 
friend  and  truer  minister  of  the  grace  of  God.  May  the  Lord 
bless  him  and  long  keep  him,  making  the  evening  shadows  to 
gather  slowly.  Let  the  night  be  tardy  in  its  coming  that  shall 
hide  from  us  so  fair  a  life. 


360  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 


XV. 
By   rev.    LEONARD  BACON,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Late  Professor  in  Yale  Theological  Seminary ^  Keio  Haven,  Connecticut. 

The  world,  it  has  been  said,  consists  of  mankind  in  general  and 
the  Beecher  family.  For  many  years  past,  the  most  conspicuous 
and, world-famous  member  of  that  family,  not  excepting  the  author 
of  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  has  been  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 

I  have  among  my  papers — perhaps  somebody  will  find  it  after 
my  decease — a  somewhat  exultant  letter  which  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher 
sent  to  me  along  with  a  copy  of  his  Henry's  firstborn  book, 
"  Lectures  to  Young  Men."  The  book  has  long  been  out  of  my 
sight,  lent,  perhaps,  to  somebody  who  thought  it  too  good  to  be 
returned,  and  was  not  sufficiently  quickened  by  it  to  remember 
"  what  is  forbidden  in  the  eighth  commandment."  I  remember 
reading  that  book  with  gTeat  pleasure,  admiring  its  force  of 
thought  and  expression,  its  wealth  of  illustration,  its  insight  into 
human  nature  under  the  various  phases  of  individual  character,  its 
boldness  of  assault  and  denunciation,  its  earnestness  in  warning 
young  men  against  moral  dangers,  and  the  electric  force  of  its  in- 
citements to  manly  aspiration  and  manly  living.  In  every  lecture 
I  seemed  to  see  sparks  as  from  the  red  iron  on  the  old  anvil,  and 
to  hear  the  old  Boanerges  thundering  with  a  youthful  voice.  It 
was  evident  that  if  the  young  preacher  of  those  lectures  should  be 
spared  to  his  generation,  he  would  be  heard  from  again  and 
often. 

He  has  been  heard  from  ;  and  his  name  to-day  is  familiar  as  a 
household  name  through  the  breadth  of  the  continent.  His  dis- 
courses are  read  wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken.  I  in- 
dulge in  no  criticism  on  the  eccentricity  or   seeming  eccentricity 


ANALYSES  OP  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      361 

of  his  career,  further  than  to  express  my  confidence  that  wlien  the 
eccentricity  seems  greatest,  the  centrifugal  force  is  checked  and  the 
star  is  held  in  its  orbit  by  the  attraction  of  the  Sun  of  Righteous- 
ness. Nor  will  I  venture  to  foretell  what  the  total  of  his  influence 
is  to  be  on  the  age  that  is  to  follow  him.  To  some  extent,  he  has 
been  a  breaker-up  of  fallow  ground,  driving  a  strong  ploughshare 
through  the  tangled  roots  of  traditional  dogmas  and  half -intelli- 
gent prejudices,  and  turning  up  the  underlying  truth  to  the  sun- 
light. If  in  so  doing  he  has  sometimes  wounded  more  than 
was  needful  the  sensibilities  of  good  people  who  cling  with  loving 
reverence  to  old  phraseology  in  the  statement  of  truth  and  to  old 
rules  and  forms  of  behavior,  let  us  forgive  him,  remembering  that 
we  also  are  human,  and  thanking  God,  who  furnished  him  with 
great  gifts  and  gave  him  great  courage  and  great  opportunities. 

In  the  great  and  painful  crisis  of  his  life — if  some  good  men  dis- 
trusted him — if  many  feared  for  him  and  were  anxious — there  was 
this  testimony  in  his  favor  :  wicked  men  and  women,  those  who 
hate  the  Church  and  the  Bible,  and  would  emancipate  society  from 
the  fear  of  God  and  the  restraints  of  Christian  morality,  combined 
against  him,  and  manifested  their  hatred  of  him.  Was  not  this 
an  illustration  of  what  was  in  Christ's  thought  when  he  said  to  his 
disciples,  "  Woe  unto  you  when  all  men  shall  speak  well  of 
you?" 

That  the  honored  name  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  may  brighten 
as  his  head  grows  hoary,  that,  with  every  year  that  passes  over 
him,  his  soul  may  be  more  and  more  enriched  with  the  knowledge 
which  comes  from  experience  of  the  grace  of  God,  and  that  his 
testimony  for  "  all  things  that  pertain  to  life  and  godliness"  may 
be  prolonged  through  many  years  to  come  with  ever-increasing 
efficiency,  is  the  prayer  of  his  friend  and  his  father's  friend. 


362  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 


•    XVI. 

By   HON.    FREDERICK  DOUGLASS, 
Of  Washington,  D.  C. 

No  just  man  will  deny  to  Henry  Ward  Beecher  tlie  possession 
of  great  qualities,  and  no  generous  man  will  wish  to  do  so.  His- 
tory will  accord  to  him  a  high  place  among  tbe  laborers  in 
every  good  word  and  work  of  his  day  and  generation.  He  can 
never  be  numbered  with  the  laggards  in  Church  or  State.  Without 
awaiting  the  friendly  pressure  of  popular  sentiment,  self-moved 
and  self-sustained,  he  has  dared  to  espouse  the  right  side  of  every 
great  question  of  the  age.  Against  ignorance,  superstition,  and 
bigotry,  he  has  long  been  a  mighty  power  in  the  land.  His  ten- 
der heart  and  broad  humanity  has  made  him  the  friend  of  the 
poor,  the  weak,  and  the  persecuted  everywhere  and  of  every  race 
and  color.  As  a  colored  man  and  one  who  has  felt  the  lash  and 
sting  of  slavery,  I  cannot  forget  the  powerful  words  of  this  man 
in  the  cause  of  justice  and  liberty,  and  in  righteous  denunciation 
of  slavery.  Standing  in  his  own  place  outside  the  abolition 
ranks,  he  probably  did  more  to  generate  anti-slavery  sentiment  than 
he  could  have  done  by  taking  his  stand  inside  those  ranks. 
Through  his  influence  and  example  the  doors  of  Plymouth  Church 
were  open,  when  nought  but  a  grand  moral  courage  could  have 
kept  them  so.  It  was  in  that  church  alone,  in  the  darkest  moment 
of  the  anti-slavery  movement,  when  an  enraged  nation  madly 
clamored  for  the  blood  of  John  Brown,  that  Wendell  Phillips 
could  be  permitted  to  throw  the  shining  shield  of  his  eloquence 
over  the  bleeding  head  of  the  grand  old  hero  and  martyr. 

But  the  world  knows  of  the  good  works  of  this  mar.  :  how  he 
welcomed  and  succored  the  panting  fugitive  from  slavery  ;  how  he 
denounced  and  stamped  upon  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill ;  how  he  de- 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      363 

nounced  the  border  ruffian  invasion  of  Kansas  ;  how  in  the  face  of 
mobs  and  violence  he  defended  and  protected  free  speech  ;  how 
he  stood  by  the  Union  and  liberty  against  a  slaveholding  rebellion  ; 
how  by  his  eminent  tact  and  marvellous  eloquence  he  turned  the 
tide  of  British  sentiment  in  favor  of  the  integrity  of  his  country, 
and  defeated  the  machinations  of  traitors  and  rebels,  are  things 
all  too  familiar  to  be  repeated  here,  I  remember  an  incident 
which  early  opened  to  me  the  heart  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 
He  had  come  to  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  to  deliver  an  address  before 
the  Literary  Societies  of  Rochester  University.  While  there  he 
did  me  the  honor  to  call  upon  me.  During  his  stay  my  little 
daughter,  long  since  dead,  came  into  the  room  and  laid  her  little 
hand  lovingly  on  my  knee.  Mr.  Beecher  noticed  the  child.  I 
said  to  him,  How  could  any  man  with  a  human  heart  take  that 
child  from  my  arms  and  sell  her  on  the  auction-block  ?  I  never 
shall  forget  his  look  at  the  moment.  He  begged  me  not  to 
mention  it.  The  thought  made  him  sick,  as  if  he  were  looking 
upon  a  tender  sister  being  bled. 

I  willingly  give  this  leaf,  for  I  wish  the  good  that  men   do  to 
live  after  them. 


XVII. 
REV.  FRANCIS   N.  ZABRISKIE,  D.D., 

Editor  of  Christian  Intelligencer,  Kew  York. 

When  a  young  man,  between  eighteen  and  twenty  years  of  age, 
a  law  student  in  New  York,  I  used  very  frequently  to  go  to  Brook- 
lyn on  the  Sabbath,  and  in  the  evening  usually  attended  Plym- 
outh Church.  It  was  in  those  days  that  the  Spirit  of  God  was 
striving  with  my  spirit,  applying  to  my  conscience  the  counsels  and 
influences  of  a  Christian  parentage  and  nurture.     At  length,  I  de- 


364  HENKY  WARD  BEECHER. 

cided  that  I  could  no  longer  resist.  I  must  lay  hold  upon  eternal 
life,  as  well  as  make  my  present  living  a  more  worthy  and  restful 
thing  by  giving  it  to  God. 

My  training  had  been  of  the  most  strictly  evangelical  and  ortho- 
dox kind,  and  I  would  say  here,  that  my  belief  in  those  facts  con- 
cerning God  and  man,  which  we  usually  designate  as  Calvinistic, 
have  never  ceased  to  commend  themselves  as  the  profoundest  and 
most  reasonable  truth,  and  Mr.  Beecher's  manner  and  matter  of 
preaching  were  quite  different  from  that  to  which  I  had  been  ac- 
customed. But,  perhaps  for  that  very  reason,  his  mode  of  putting 
the  question  of  salvation  made  the  way  more  plain  and  practicable 
than  did  any  other  preacher.  And  I  always  think  of  the  help 
which  he  afforded  me,  in  that  supreme  crisis  of  my  destiny,  with 
gratitude  and  affection. 

I  was  summoned  to  the  Plymouth  Church  Council  in  1876, 
as  the  pastor  of  the  Old  Saybrook  Church,  Conn.,  without  any 
previous  personal  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Beecher.  I  confess  that 
I  went  there  with  a  troubled  heart  and  opinions  somevvhat  un- 
settled. And,  in  order  to  hold  myself  entirely  free  from  special 
pressure  or  obligation,  I  declined  to  accept  hospitalities  or  travel- 
ling expenses  at  the  hand  of  the  Plymouth  Church  people.  But  I 
left  the  council  firmly  persuaded  (as  were  all  who  attended)  that 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  not  only  unjustly  accused,  but  that 
he  was  one  of  the  noblest  and,  in  this  matter,  one  of  the  saintliest 
souls  which  the  grace  of  Christ  had  moved  and  moulded. 


XVIII. 
By  rev.  C.  N.  SIMS,  D.D., 

Chancellor  of  t^racuse  Methodist  Episcopal  University,  New  York. 

Every   intelligent    minister   of    the   present    day   must   have 
observed   the   career   and    work  of  Mr.   Beecher  with  sufficient 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      365 

interest  to  form  a  decided  opinion  both  of  the  man  and  his  minis- 
try. Such  I  had  formed  prior  to  my  coming  to  Brooklyn  more 
than  five  years  ago.  But  since  that  time  it  has  been  my  privilege 
to  revise  my  opinions  in  the  light  of  a  personal  acquaintance  with 
]\Ir.  Beecher,  his  parishioners,  and  personal  observation  of  bis 
"work. 

The  distinctive  individuality  of  his  ministry  is  no  less  marked 
than  that  of  the  man  himself.  It  is  wholly  unique.  To  an  out- 
side observer  it  would  seem  that  the  attendant  upon  Mr. 
Beecher's  ministry  is  attracted  to  it  entirely  by  the  preacher 
and  his  utterances,  and  not  because  the  church  represents  his 
theological  opinions,  affords  him  the  usual  church  opportunities, 
or  furnishes  him  with  definite  Christian  employment.  He  goes 
there  because  he  likes  Mr.  Beecher  and  what  he  says.  There  is 
not  apparent  to  an  outside  observer  any  cohesiveness  in  Plymouth 
congregation  which  would  hold  it  together  if  its  pastor  were 
removed.  It,  therefore,  appears  to  lack  that  element  of  perpetu- 
ity which  survives  men  and  insures  the  continued  life  and  power 
of  a  church,  notwithstanding  pastoral  changes.  This,  I  take  it, 
indicates  at  once  a  power  and  a  weakness  in  Mr.  Beecher's 
ministry,  a  power  of  personal  genius,  an  ability  to  instruct, 
comfort,  and  inspire  human  souls  and  to  voice  human  experiences 
so  as  to  interpret  the  heart  to  itself  ;  a  weakness  in  failing  to 
estabhsh  in  the  minds  and  consciences  of  the  members  those 
distinctive  elements  of  faith  and  well-defined  classifications  of  duty 
"which  give  the  church  a  permanent  hold  upon  the  member  as  hav- 
ing incorporated  into  it  the  expression  both  of  his  faith  and  duty. 
Probably  this  lack  of  definiteness  and  tangibility  in  the  church  "is 
the  result  of  a  want  on  Mr.  Beecher's  part  of  clear  cut,  positive 
views  on  the  great  evangelical  doctrines  of  orthodoxy,  and  the 
great  prominence  he  has  given  to  the  humanitarian  side  of  Christ's 
teachings. 

In   marked   contrast   to  this  apparent    weakness    he    has  the 


366  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

wonderful  power  of  educating  liis  hearers  to  the  highest  concep- 
tions of  and  efficiency  in  performing  the  practical  duties  of  Chris- 
tianity. The  success  of  Plymouth  Church  in  all  manner  of  minis- 
trations to  the  poor,  in  the  maintenance  of  mission  schools,  Bible 
readings,  care  for  oi'phans,  and  contributions  to  outside  benevo- 
lencies  is  both  a  surprise  and  example  to  the  other  churches  of  the 
city. 

There  is,  moreover,  a  broad  charity  in  his  teachings  which  lifts 
the  minds  of  his  hearers  above  denominational  selfishness  and  fixes 
them  with  great  steadiness  upon  the  two  great  commandments  : 
to  love  Grod  with  all  our  hearts  and  our  neighbors  as  ourselves. 

Mr.  Beecher's  ministry  has  been  of  incalculable  value  in  teach- 
ing the  intelligent  and  reputable  classes  a  more  just  appreciation 
of  the  condition  and  character  of  the  ignorant,  vicious,  and  home- 
less classes.  In  this  respect  he  is  for  the  degraded  part  of  our 
population,  for  whom  so  seldom  an  advocate  appears,  and  whose 
true  condition  is  so  infrequently  voiced,  what  Henry  Bergh  is  for 
the  dumb  brute.  He  has  taught  men  to  consider  the  environ- 
ments of  the  poor,  the  temptations  of  the  degraded,  the  weakness 
of  the  erring,  the  dim  and  nebulous  hopes  of  the  wretched,  and  to 
pity  and  help  where  formerly  they  "  passed  by  on  the  other 
side." 

The  influence  of  the  Plymouth  pulpit  upon  moral-political 
questions  has  been  very  great.  Its  steady  advocacy  of  freedom, 
the  ballot,  and  all  the  rights  of  citizenship,  has  educated  and 
elevated  public  sentiment  on  these  questions.  Mr.  Beecher  is  a 
successful  minister  of  the  gospel  of  mere}',  justice,  and  the  rights 
of  humanity,  as  well  as  of  regeneration  and  pardon. 

One  of  the  most  important  fruits  of  his  ministry  is  the  influence 
of  his  preaching  upon  other  ministers  ;  to  them,  all  over  the 
world,  he  has  been  an  inspiration,  and  an  interpreter  of  spiritual 
truth.  His  illustrations  have  been  both  expositions  and  argu- 
ments.    His  directness  and  simplicity  of  style  have  helped  to  free 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  KEMINISCENCES.      3G7 

thousands  of  ministers  from  narrow  conventionalism  and  pulpit 
cant.  He  has  educated  them  into  broader  thought  and  more 
unconstrained  expression.  For  years,  I  have  found  his  sermons 
on  any  subject  I  was  studying  among  my  best  text-books. 
Altogether,  though  I  do  not  think  it  will  be  given  Mr.  Beecher 
to  live  in  vigorous  life  in  the  eflSciency  of  the  Plymouth  Church 
after  his  ministry  shall  cease,  yet  I  do  believe  he  will  continue  to 
live  efficiently  and  helpfully  in  the  pulpits  of  Christendom,  in 
enlightened  public  sentiment,  in  quickened  charities,  in  elevated 
political  opinions,  and  a  generally  advanced  condition  of  society. 

Concerning  Mr.  Beecher  personally,  my  impressions  have  all 
been  of  the  pleasantest  character.  Kind-hearted,  approachable, 
hospitable,  easily  enlisted  in  any  good  cause,  genial,  full  of  humor 
and  sympathy,  he  is  socially  one  of  the  most  charming  of  men. 
Personal  intercourse  with  him  cannot  fail  to  confirm  one's  confi- 
dence in  his  purit}',  integrity,  and  nobility  of  character.  He 
wears  his  crown  of  increasing  years  with  a  grace  which  makes  it  a 
glory.  Increasing  acquaintance  with  him  is  synonymous  with 
increasing  confidence  in  him.  I  trust- his  work  and  influence  for 
good  will  be  continued  for  years  to  come. 


XIX. 

By  J.  L.  CUNNINGHAM, 

Of  Dundee,  Scotland. 


Speaking  one  day  to  a  Manchester  merchant  about  ]\Ir. 
Beecher  and  his  work,  he  said  he  never  heard  him  but  once,  "  But 
I  will  ever  retain  the  impression  he  then  made  upon  me  of  his 
power  as  an  orator  and  tact  in  conquering  a  hostile  audience. 
He  was  announced  to  speak  in  the  Free  Trade  Hall,  Manchester, 


368  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

and  having  read  of  tlie  rough  treatment  he  had  got  in  Liverpool,* 
thought  I  might  go  in  and  see  this  wonderful  Yankee  who  had 
caused  such  a  sensation  among  the  cotton  dealers  and  shippers 
in  Liverpool.  I  certainly  had  no  impression  of  him  either 
favorable  or  unfavorable,  and  when  I  looked  at  the  crowded  and 
excited-like  assemblage,  I  thought  he  would  even  fare  worse  with 
us  than  in  Liverpool.  When  he  commenced  to  speak,  there  was 
such  a  persistent  and  apparently  determined  effort  to  put  him 
down,  that  I  thought  he  would  have  to  retire  ;  but  there  he  stood 
calm  ?ind  fearless,  dropping  in  a  few  sentences  during  the  lulls  in 
the  storm  of  howling,  the  effect  of  which  sentences  on  those  who 
heard  them  was  to  convert  them  from  opponents  to  active  and 
earnest  agents  in  procuring  for  him  a  hearing  ;  but  ever  and  anon, 
the  yelling  and  hooting  would  compel  him  to  desist,  but  he  never 
flinched  till  he  fairly  conquered  that  vast  audience,  and  held  them 
for  a  time,  as  it  were,  spell-bound,  listening  to  his  glowing  appeal 
for  sympathy  on  behalf  of  his  suffering  country.  During  the  latter 
part  of  his  address,  if  any  one  had  ventured  to  create  any  disturb- 
ance I  verily  believe  the  audience  would  have  thrown  them  out  of 
the  windows.  I  never  saw  any  assemblage  so  completely  won 
over  by  a  speaker  as  that  one  was." 

I  have  little  else  to  inform  you  regarding  his  visit  to  this  country, 
save  what  will  be  already  well  known  to  you.  One  great  result 
came  out  of  it.  The  nation  as  a  nation  were  so  roused  up  to  stand 
by  the  North,  in  their  momentous  struggle,  that  the  government 
who  were  being  wrought  upon  by  Louis  Napoleon  to  recognize 
the  South  were  compelled  to  remain  neutral,  or  give  a  tardy 
support  to  the  North,  who  all  along  had  the  sympathy  of  the  mass 
of  the  British  nation,  but  which  sympathy  was  quickened  into 
action  by  Mr.  Beecher's  warm-hearted  and  stirring  speeches,  and 
for  which  the  American  nation  owe  him  a  debt  of  gratitude. 

*  Evidently  a  slip  of  pen  or  tongue.  Mr.  Beecher  spoke  first  in 
Manchester,  afterward  in  Liverpool. 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      369 

XX. 

By   rev.    frank   RUSSELL, 

Fastor  of  the  Congregational  Church,  Mansfield,    Ohio. 

In  1864  I  united  with  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  at  the  same 
time  that  I  became  a  student  in  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New 
York.  In  1874  I  left  a  six-years'  pastorate  of  Park  Congrega- 
tional Church,  Brooklyn,  and  during  these  ten  years,  and  I  may 
say  for  also  the  five  following  years,  I  was  well  acquainted  with 
Mr.  Beecher.  I  was  also  a  teacher  of  short-hand  reporting,  and, 
perhaps,  pretty  well  skilled  in  the  art  of  taking  the  seminary  lect- 
ures verbatim  and  also  much  matter  from  Plymouth  Church  and 
prayer-meeting  and  many  notes  from  and  about  my  well-beloved 
pastor.  The  recent  burning  of  my  home  and  its  contents,  includ- 
ing my  library  and  manuscripts,  may  occasion  some  discrepancy  of 
dates,  but  the  following  sketches  and  reminiscences  are,  I  think, 
substantially  correct. 

Together  with  scores  of  other  young  men  I  was  the  recipient  of 
many  helpful  personal  favors  from  Mr.  Beecher.  I  first  met  him 
at  the  examining  committee  on  presenting  myself  with  a  letter  for 
membership. 

I  have  always  remembered  that  meeting  as  not  only  a  most 
appropriate  and  thorough  examination,  but  also  as  a  model  church 
reception  committee  the  functions  of  which  seemed  to  be  to 
become  fully  acquainted  with  each  candidate  personally,  and  to 
make  them  as  fully  acquainted  with  the  church,  its  officers,  its 
polity,  and  its  various  departments  of  Christian  work.  Previous 
experiences  had  brought  the  pressure  of  the  harness  a  little  upon 
me,  but  from  that  night  I  sensibly  perceived  that  the  traces  were 
taut  and  that  my  business  was  to  walk  steadily  and  firmly  forward. 
I  had  heard  Mr.  Beecher  before  both  in  the  pulpit  and  on  the 


370  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

platform,  but  never  had  he,  and  never  afterward  did  he,  appear 
either  as  great  or  as  good  as  he  did  in  that  personal  intercourse 
with  me  and  with  the  other  candidates.  That  I  had  come  out  of 
the  fires  of  war  and  that  I  was  struggling  for  the  ministry  was 
disclosed  to  the  committee,  and  Mr.  Beecher  holding  my  hand  to 
the  door  to  bid  me  good-night,  and  God-speed,  he  pressed  into 
my  hand  a  bank  bill,  which  with  seeming  carelessness  he  took 
from  his  vest  pocket.  As  I  attempted  to  decline  it  he  roughly 
held  my  hand  about  it  and  said  with  some  show  of  impatience  in 
both,  voice  and  manner,  "  You'll  find  out  that  we  Plymouth 
people  have  a  way  of  doing  as  we  have  a  mind  to."  I  supposed 
the  bill  was  probably  a  two  or  a  five,  but  I  found  it  to  be  fifty 
dollars,  and  afterward  had  the  pleasure  of  informing  Mr.  Beecher 
how  well  the  Appletons'  Cyclopaedia  looked,  as  the  result,  for  the 
beginning  of  my  library. 

Alike  with  all  new-comers  I  found  a  difiiculty  in  getting  not 
only  a  seat,  but  sometimes  standing-room  beyond  the  threshold  at 
church  service,  and  sometimes  I  was  among  the  number  who  had 
to  turn  away  to  find  vacant  pews  in  some  other  church,  but  on 
remarking  it  to  Mr.  Beecher  he  seemed  delighted  to  give  me  a 
card  which  secured  me  a  sitting  at  his  family  pew  that  I  held  for 
nearly  two  years. 

From  the  studies  in  the  seminary  and  from  my  own  personal 
reading  and  experience,  I  found  necessary  and  practicable  a  stand- 
ing memorandum -page  of  items,  which  on  occasional  visits  would 
claim  the  attention  of  my  pastor,  so  that  I  often  remarked  what 
subsequent  years  confirm,  that  such  interviews,  together  with  the 
rich  ministrations  of  the  Sabbath  and  of  the  prayer-meetings,  were 
of  as  much  value  to  me  as  any  one  of  the  seminary  professors,  and 
this  does  not  in  the  least  depreciate  their  worth. 

And  long  after  I  became  a  neighboring  pastor  in  Brooklyn,  Mr. 
Beecher  continued  to  be  a  much-needed  pastor  to  me.  Among 
the  class  at  the  seminary,  fifty-two  young  men  in  number,  were  a 


I 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      371 

few  who  did  not  conceal  some  theological,  or  envious,  or  other 
ignorant  prejudice  against  the  pastor  of  Plymouth  Church.  I  am 
not  able  in  very  strong  terms  to  affirm  that  the  influence  from 
some  of  the  professors'  chairs  was  always  calculated  to  eradicate 
such  bias  from  the  minds  of  the  young  men.  At  least  it  seemed 
to  continue  with  a  few  who  scrupulously  refrained  their  foot 
from  Plymouth  portals.  I  incidentally  disclosed  this  fact  in  a 
casual  conversation  with  Mr.  Beecher.  He  asked  me,  a  little 
thoughtfully,  when  the  most  students  would  be  likely  to  be  in 
attendance  upon  his  church.  I  told  him  that  most  of  the  young 
men  were  to  leave  town  with  the  close  of  the  seminary  year,  soon 
after  the  1st  of  May,  and  many  of  them  I  thought  would  treat 
themselves  to  hearing  him  about  the  last  Sabbath  evening  in 
April.  My  conjecture  proved  quite  correct,  for  on  that  desig- 
nated time  in  1875  I  saw  an  unusual  number  of  familiar  seminary 
faces  in  Plymouth  audience. 

I  will  not  stop  here  to  recall  whether  anything  of  my  sugges- 
tion was  at  all  accessory  to  this  fact.  The  sermon,  however,  was 
on  "  What  kind  of  ministry  do  the  churches  of  the  present  time 
need  ? ' '  and  such  a  scope  of  the  subject,  including  all  the  range  of 
the  seminary  work,  and  all  the  practical  and  pressing  demands  of 
the  pulpit  and  the  pastorate,  I  have  never  seen  anywhere  so 
vividly  presented.  The  husks  of  ancient  beliefs  and  practices 
were  torn  apart  from  the  kernel  and  wxre  held  pungently  forth, 
and  possibly  with  some  appearance  of  sarcasm.  Some  things  yet 
lingering  in  seminary  or  theological  forms,  he  thought,  had  been 
' '  dead  four  days, ' '  and  with  a  sudden  dramatic  flash,  and  a  scene 
improvised,  Mr.  Beecher  addressed  himself  sagely  to  the  front 
seats  occupied  by  his  assumed  class.  The  following  exercises  took 
place,  ushered  in  with  the  one  sudden  remark  :  "  I  know  how 
they  educate  young  ministers  sometimes." 

"  Well,  young  brethren,  you  have  been  inclosed  in  these  walls 
until  you  have  finished  the  prescribed  studies  of  the  course.     You 


372  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

are  now  to  go  forth  into  the  world  to  do  your  holy  work,  and  you 
will  please  attend  unto  your  final  examination." 

[To  the  first  in  the  class.]  "  Brother,  you  may  tell  us  what 
you  have  learned  about  the  creation."  [After  listening  as  though 
to  the  reply.]     "  Yes,  that  is  what  you  have  been  taught." 

[To  the  second  student.]  "  And  you,  brother,  may  tell  us 
about  Adam  and  the  Fall."  [After  listening.]  "  Yes,  that  is  in 
strict  accordance  with  our  belief  here." 

[To  the  third  student.]  "  You  may  state  what  you  know  about 
the  Flood  and  about  Moses."  [After  listening  and  stroking  his 
invisible  beard.]  "  Yes,  that  is  correct.  Your  preaching  will 
not  fail  to  be  sound.  So,"  said  he,  sweeping  the  class  scene 
away  with  a  gesture,  "  they  make  ministers  by  taking  a  little  fore- 
ordained dough,  unleavened,  and  carry  it  to  the  seminary,  and  the 
professors  within  the  dingy  walls  roll  it,  and  roll  it,  and  roll  it, 
and  pat  it,  and  pat  it,  and  pat  it,  and  stick  just  so  many  little  theo- 
logical holes  in  it,  each  in  exactly  the  right  place,  and  then  toss 
it  up  into  the  oven  and  bake  it  just  twenty  minutes,  the  prescribed 
length  of  a  sermon — and  out  he  comes  a  little  cracker  minister. 
Do  you  know  how  I  would  proceed  if  I  had  the  training  and  the 
examining  of  these  young  men  ?  I'd  ask  them  what  they  knew  of 
the  daily  papers,  I'd  ask  them  what  they  think  of  the  lizardly 
sneaks  that  make  up  the  New  York  City  Council." 

The  effect  of  this  strong  presentation  was  not  only  stirring  and 
salutary  at  the  time,  but  I  observed  that  it  came  with  converting 
power  to  the  souls  of  at  least  some  of  the  previously  prejudiced 
young  men. 

Mr.  Beecher  has  wonderful  powers  of  analysis.  His  perception 
acts  not  only  as  with  a  flash,  but  the  flash  discloses  not  merely 
the  body  of  the  object,  but  to  his  intuitions  the  parts,  with  their 
relations,  all  lie  clearly  open.  That  which  for  other  men  requires 
hours  of  intense  study  and  careful  compilation,  spreads  before  him 
at  once,  and  with  clear  methodical  arrangement.     After  having 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       373 

preached  a  year  I  passed  through  the  usual  discouragement  which 
I  think  characterizes  beginners.  I  was  troubled  for  subjects.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  I  had  been  over  all  the  ground  of  both  cardinal 
doctrines  and  practical  duties,  and  I  began  to  think  that  I  was  not 
calculated  in  such  a  degree  as  I  had  supposed  for  a  preacher  of 
the  Gospel.  I  sought  an  interview  with  Mr.  Beecher,  and  told 
him  that  after  every  sermon  I  had  the  same  disappointment  and 
was  discouraged.  He  answered  my  plaint  promptly  and  in  these 
words  :  "  Well,  if  this  is  so  I  begin  to  have  some  hopes  of  you. 
Your  disgust  with  your  efforts  is  a  good  symptom.  It  springs 
from  three  causes.  1st.  Your  nerves  are  tired.  You  have  no 
business  to  judge  of  your  work  on  either  Sundays  or  Mondays. 
2d.  Your  pride  is  touched  and  will  often  need  this  same  kind  of 
humbling  as  long  as  you  live.  The  Lord  alone  gives  any  strength 
and  he  must  have  the  giory  ;  and,  3d.  Your  feeling  of  not  hav- 
ing attained  is  what  every  artist  needs  :  if  you  felt  that  you  had 
reached  your  ideal  your  progress  would  be  at  an  end. ' ' 

I'  While  in  my  first  pastorate  in  Philadelphia,  Mr.  Beecher  closed 
a  letter  to  me  in  these  words  :  "  I  suppose  you  are  now  taxing 
your  strength  in  the  building  of  brick  and  mortar,  and  with  com- 
mittees and  contractors.  Let  me  advise  you  if  Friday  drops  at  your 
feet  finding  you  without  your  sermon  subjects  selected,  and  you 
feel  greatly  overburdened  about  it,  just  spend  one  of  the  remain- 
ing days  fishing  and  you  will  preach  all  the  better  for  it." 

In  Mr.  Beccher's  brother,  Edward,  I  had  been  interested 
through  his  writing,  and  after  his  coming  to  Brooklyn  had  many 
times  seen  his  striking  visage  before  I  had  personally  met  him. 
The   latter    pleasure   was    reserved    for   my   enjoyment   at   Mr. 

j  Beecher's  house,  with  an  introduction  by  Mr.  Beecher  himself.  I 
had  been  a  few  minutes  in  the  parlor  waiting  for  Mr.  Beecher 
while  Dr.  Edward  Beecher  himself  was  also  in  the  room  reading 
and  with  the  sparest  recognition  of  my  presence.  When  Mr. 
Beecher  entered,  evidently  perceiving  that  I  was  not  acquainted 
23 


374  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

with  his  brother,  he  said,  drawing  me  by  the  hand  toward  him  : 
**  Why,  don't  you  know  my  brother  Edward  ?"  I  replied  that  I 
felt  somewhat  acquainted  with  him,  but  that  I  had  never  been  in- 
troduced, ''  Well,  this  is  he,"  he  said,  "  and  if  I  had  his  brain 
and  my  present  gift  of  gab,  I  could  shake  this  whole  world." 

I  many  times  noticed  one  thing  which  I  have  often  wondered 
was  so  little  spoken  of  in  Mr.  Beecher's  favor,  especially  when  tbe 
troublous  times  appeared.  I  allude  to  the  evidences  in  little 
things  of  his  loyalty  to  his  wife.  I  shall  never  forget  the  iirst 
time  I  ever  saw  her.  It  was  after  my  acquaintance  with  her  hus- 
band had  somewhat  matured.  I  was  alone  with  him  for  a  talk  in 
the  library.  It  was  a  cold  day,  and  he  was  seated  in  a  large  chair 
facing  the  blazing  grate,  when  the  door  opened  across  the  room 
from  his  seat,  and  Mrs.  Beecher,  apparently  in  poor  health,  softly 
entered  and  with  noiseless  step  came  up  behind  him  and  reached 
her  hand  down  over  his  shoulder,  which  he  grasped  and  kissed  as 
he  would  the  hand  of  a  child,  and  then  introduced  me  to  her. 
On  many  occasions  afterward  I  noticed  and  also  often  heard  i^ 
remarked  by  others  that  at  times  when  it  is  quite  customary  for 
husbands  and  wives  to  change  partners  for  purposes  of  conversa- 
tion, carriage-riding,  promenading,  and  at  the  dining-table,  Mr. 
Beecher  almost  invariably  was  distinguished  with  his  wife  by  his 
side,  and  once  I  heard  him  remark  when  speaking  of  the  pressure 
of  his  work,  that  he  had  no  opportunity  of  conversing  with  her 
except  when  they  went  visiting. 

It  has  been  a  popular  thing  for  some  to  charge  Mr.  Beecher 
with  looseness  of  theology,  with  the  easy  inference  that  flowing 
from  it  there  must  be  some  looseness  of  practice,  whereas  a  few 
have  noticed  that  he  has  been  abstemious  in  his  habits  of  living  as 
compared  with  some  who  have  exhibited  concern  for  him.  It  is 
not  Mr.  Beecher  who  has  had  his  wine  and  ale  at  his  dinner-table 
and  his  Havana  afterward,  but  his  rule  has  been,  like  Paul's, 
"  not  to vbe, under  the  power  of  any  ;"  for  months,  and  perhaps  for 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.        375 

years,  even  ignoring  the  common  beverages  of  tea  and  cotfee  lest 
their  effect  upon  his  nerves  was  not  the  best. 

From  some  incidents  with  which  I  was  personally  conversant, 
from  a  person  who  was  a  member  of  his  household,  and  from 
some  parties  who  had  grateful  reasons  for  remembering  the  same, 
the  writer  came  into  possession  of  many  facts  which  confirm  the 
impression,  prevalent  in  all  his  history,  that  Mr.  Beechcr's  life  is 
one  of  singular  charity  and  generosity.  It  has  often  been  said, 
and  doubtless  truly,  that  in  this  regard  he  is  susceptible  of  easy 
imposition.  I  have  seen  him  hand  money  to  those  asking  alms, 
to  some  calling  at  his  door  with  pitiful  tales  of  distress,  in 
amounts  which  I  silently  thought  were  far  too  large  for  the  occa- 
sion. Among  his  mail  were  so  frequently  letters  inclosing  from 
one  to  ten  dollars  and  sometimes  a  greater  sum  ;  sometimes  from 
near  home,  sometimes  from  far  away,  and  especially  from  the  far 
west.  With  the  sums  inclosed  were  expressions  of  deep  and  sin- 
cere gratitude  for  the  loan  at  a  time  of  great  need,  Mr.  Beecher 
being  generally  unable  to  recall  the  particulars  of  the  cases,  and 
often  asserting  that  it  must  be  a  mistake. 

A  lady  member  of  Plymouth  Church,  who  for  years  was  very 
active  in  work  among  the  poor,  has  related  many  instances  of  dis- 
tress relieved  by  singular  "  providences" — the  ton  of  coal,  the 
barrel  of  flour,  and  the  bundles  of  groceries  left  mysteriously  at 
the  dwellings  of  the  needy,  just  at  the  time  when  the  want  was 
the  sorest — and  "  when  we  get  to  the  last  pinch,"  said  she,  ''  we 
can  always  help  any  one  out  by  getting  at  Mr.  Beecher." 

The  remark  was  common  among  all  who  knew  of  the  circum- 
stances, when  his  apparently  large  salary  was  the  theme  of  conver- 
sation, that  it  made  very  little  difference  how  much  Mr.  Beecher 
received,  for  he  would  give  away  all  but  his  living,  and  his  family 
had  to  watch  pretty  closely  to  secure  that.  Perhaps  it  should  be 
stated  in  this  connection  that  such  an  outflow  of  charities  was  not 
regulated  in  amounts  by  any  principles  known  either  to  the  tithing 


376  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

system  of  the  Bible  or  to  the  science  of  book-keeping,  but  were 
always  the  spontaneous  expressions  of  his  generous  heart. 

THE    CHILD    ASLEEP    IN    THE    CHURCH. 

I  recall  a  sweet  picture  from  the  once  familiar  congregation.  It 
was  in  the  evening.  I  cannot  speak  of  the  ventilation,  for  that 
room  for  some  reason  always  seemed  exempt  from  the  ordinary 
criticism  upon  the  ventilation  and  velvets,  the  light  and  laces,  the 
draughts  and  dresses,  the  closeness  and  crimps,  the  heat  and  haugh- 
tiness, the  bigotry  and  bonnets,  and  the  slamming  and  snoring, 
and  all  the  category  of  ills  that  ordinary  congregations  are  heir  to. 

I  have  often  observed  that  there  was  no  observance  of  these 
things  by  the  people  who  gather  to  hear  the  preaching,  but  the 
preacher  UY)on  the  platform  is  the  only  observed  of  all  observers. 
So  wliether  the  seven-year-old  boy  sitting  with  his  mother  in  the 
gallery  over  Mr,  Beecher's  left  was  made  sleepy  by  any  imper- 
fection in  the  atmosphere,  I  am  not  able  to  say,  but  my  range  was 
such  that  I  naturally  followed  the  furtive  advertisement  of  the 
speaker's  glance,  from  wliich  I  knew  that  he  was  evidently  annoyed 
at  the  frequent  efforts  of  the  overfaithful  mother  to  shake  lier  boy 
awake  when  his  weary  eyes  would  close  and  his  head  would  swing 
and  drop  forward  like  a  hawk  who  soars  a  little  time  about  the 
prey  below  and  then  darts  straight  upon  it.  Mr.  Beecher  ap- 
peared to  glance  up  in  that- direction  exactly  simultaneously  with 
every  successive  maternal  shaking  which  the  little  martyr  received, 
always  attended  with  the  rather  fierce  shaking  of  the  mother's 
head  at  him.  The  attention  of  the  congregation  would  not  have 
been  interrupted  had  it  not  been  that  Mr.  Beecher  seemed  to  find 
it  impossible  to  restrain  his  sensitiveness  in  that  direction.  There 
ensued  more  sleeping,  liarder  shaking,  both  of  the  child's  form 
and  the  mother's  head,  and  the  timely  glancing  from  the  pulpit, 
until  the  last  shake  was  answered  by  a  muttered,  peculiar,  long- 
drawn-out  groan  which  stopped  the  speaker  an  instant,  while  in  a 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.     377 

pleading,  tender  tone  he  said  directly  to   the  lady,  "  0,  mother, 
let  the  child  sleep  ;  it  is  one  of  the  beatitudes — in  church." 

THE    woman's    vote. 

If  I  correctly  recall  the  circumstances,  it  was  during  the  winter 
of  18(58  and  1869,  at  one  of  the  Congregational  meetings  in  a 
Brooklyn  church,  that  the  question  was  under  discussion  as  to  a 
memorial  to  the  State  Legislature  to  secure  the  vote  of  women  in 
ecclesiastical  societies.  Some  good  and" able  brethren  were  opposed 
to  the  measure.  It  had  been  whispered  about  that  Mr.  Beecher 
had  promised  some  one  to  run  into  the  meeting  long  enough  to  make 
a  speech  upon  the  question.  One  opponent,  venerable  and  noted 
for  the  sweetness  of  his  singing,  expressed  the  hope  that  this 
question  would  not  be  settled  by  the  heated  persuasions  of  any 
charming  eloquence,  but  urged  that  there  be  grave  and  thoughtful 
consideration  of  the  dangers  which  he  felt  would  mevitably 
accompany  the  innovation.  Mr.  Beecher  came  in,  gained  the 
floor,  and  spoke  very  calmly,  merely  setting  forth  several  reasons 
why  the  proposition  in  his  judgment  was  one  of  duty  and  of  great 
advantage,  and  as  he  closed  he  took  his  overcoat  and  hat  and  went 
very  slowly  toward  the  door.  Some  one  was  immediately  on  his 
feet,  and  alluded  to  the  remarks  of  the  brother  who  preceded  Mr. 
Beecher,  and  urged  that  careful  deliberation  rather  than  any  elo- 
quence should  rule  the  assembly,  and  seemed  to  carry  an  invidious 
reference  to  some  of  Mr.  Beecher's  closing  words.  Mr.  Beecher 
turned  about,  slowly  and  thoughtfully  retraced  his  steps  to  a  posi- 
tion near  the  platform,  and,  as  the  speaker  closed  in  a  very  humble 
tone,  he  asked  if  he  might  be  permitted  to  add  a  few  remarks  to 
the  speech  which  he  had  made.  One  or  two  of  the  opposition 
whispered  "  No,"  he  had  had  his  speech,  etc.  ;  but  the  moderator 
reluctantly  said  he  s-u-p-p-o-s-e-d  h-e  c-o-u-1  d  s-p-e-a-k  a-g-a-i-n 
i-f  t-h-e-r-e  w^-a-s  n-o  o-b-j-e-c-t-i-o-n.  But  a  storm  of  voices 
cried  "  Beecher  !"  "  Beecher  !"  with  ccreat  enthusiasm.     As  Mr. 


378  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Beecher  stood  upon  the  platform  he  looked  from  liead  to  foot  a 
different  person  from  the  Mr.  Beecher  who  just  before  had  stated 
some  points  in  favor  of  the  question.  His  face  was  flushed,  his 
eyes  enkindled,  he  glowed  all  over,  and  appeared  restraining  his 
emotion,  and  the  "  remarks"  which  he  had  gained  permission  to 
"  add  to  his  speech  "  were  the  most  eloquent  utterances  I  ever 
heard.  It  was  evident  that  they  were  thoroughly  impromptu  ;  he 
seemed  to  have  an  inspired  vision  of  history,  of  society,  of  the 
work  of  the  church,  of  the  scriptural  position  of  women.  He 
showed  what  appreciation  was  accorded  to  the  noted  women  of 
the  Bible  ;  how  Christianity  had  exalted  and  advanced  woman  ; 
how  largely  she  had  figured  in  diplomacy  ;  how  though  much  be- 
hind the  curtain  yet  her  form  could  plainly  been  seen  in  all  gov- 
ernments ;  how  society  had  never  advanced  only  as  she  advanced, 
citing  historical  names  in  illustrative  lists  :  he  made  a  rich  painting 
of  woman's  power,  and  showed  the  necessity  of  her  co-operation 
in  all  movements  for  good.  His  intensity  was  great,  his  utterance 
more  rapid  than  1  ever  heard  before  or  since,  his  gestures  were 
emphatic,  he  was  surcharged  with  electricity,  on  fire,  blazing. 
And  there  was  no  insulation  of  the  pulpit  end  of  the  room — the  cur- 
rent swept  through  all  the  tiers  of  the  pews.  When  he  had  ceased 
and  was  again  withdrawing,  the  silence  for  a  moment  or  two 
was  profound,  until  in  different  parts  of  the  room  several  at 
length  arose  as  though  to  speak,  but  before  the  floor  was  assigned 
to  any  applicant  the  cry  of  "  Question,  question,"  rang  all  along 
the  lines  ;  no  more  speaking  was  possible  ;  they  would  vote  upon 
the  resolution,  and  as  it  was  immediately  put  the  very  ceiling 
trembled  above  the  ringing  "  Aye."  The  opposition  forgot  their 
opposition  and  voted  aye  with  the  rest,  yet  I  believe  there  was 
a  faint  echo  of  one  or  two  noes  like  the  falling  of  isolated  snow- 
flakes  against  the  wall  of  a  cathedral.  It  is  my  recollection  that 
the  movement  at  once  gained  favor  throughout  the  State  and 
quickly  became  a  law. 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       379 

THE  LADIES  IN  THE  MEDICAL  COLLEGE. 

On  the  occasion  of  some  exciting  difficulty  in  a  New  York  med- 
ical institution  with  regard  to  the  admission  of  ladies  to  the  course 
of  study,  Mr.  Beecher  came  to  plead  their  cause.  A  company  of 
reporters  seemed  to  have  concerted  with  a  band  of  the  students, 
lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort,  and  were  seated  together  bent  on 
disturbance.  Mr,  Beecher,  with  an  earnest  appeal  to  the  sense  of 
manhood,  purity,  propriety  and  progress,  won  the  entire  audi- 
ence saving  this  squad  of  intractables,  who  openly  jeered  at  his 
portrayals  of  the  influence  of  homes  with  their  mothers  and  sis- 
ters. He  suffered  the  disturbance  repeatedly  until  it  became  too 
noticeable,  and  then  gravely  stopping  his  speech,  he  advanced  to 
the  edge  of  the  platform  in  their  direction,  and  solemnly  address- 
ing them,  said  :  "Young  men,  a  few  Avinters  ago  I  had  some 
spoiled  vinegar  in  my  cellar  which  I  had  to  throw  away  ;  it  was 
just  like  you,  it  needed  more  mother,  and  I  wish  there  had  been 
more  mother  where  you  were  born.  You  would  not  have  become 
so  spoiled."  The  effect  cannot  be  explained.  It  was  too  solemn 
for  the  sense  of  wit,  and  it  was  too  witty  for  solemnity.  There 
was  no  more  disturbance. 

FROM    NOTES    TAKEN    IN    LIVERPOOL. 

A  gentleman,  who  perhaps  more  than  any  other  Englishman 
was  interested  in  Mr.  Beecher' s  great  victory  there  in  the  time  of 
our  war  (I  believe  in  the  autumn  of  1863),  took  me  up  to  Philhar- 
monic Hall,  that  ever  memorable  moral  battle-field,  and  gave  me 
an  intense  picture  of  the  scene.  This  English  gentleman  had  been 
marked  as  a  friend  to  the  Union  Cause  in  America,  in  behalf  of 
which  he  had  been  somewhat  active,  and  had  been  persuaded  by 
his  friends  of  the  danger  of  remaining  in  the  city  during  Mr. 
Beecher' s  visit.  He  sought  out,  however,  a  man  of  high  rank  in 
the  police  force,  who  had  an  active  and  important  part  in  the 
management  of  affairs  on  that  wild  night.     This  police  official  was 


380  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

my  enthusiastic  and  intelligent  delineator.  By  a  determined  and 
systematic  process,  almost  the  whole  city  had  been  wrought  into 
the  infuriation  of  a  mob.  Newspapers  had  for  days  given  increas- 
ing and  diabolical  misrepresentations  of  Mr.  Beecher  and  also  of 
the. object  of  his  visit,  until,  as  the  time  of  his  expected  arrival  was 
not  far  off,  leaflets  and  tracts  were  freely  scattered  about  the  city, 
frothing  with  venom,  and  threatening  disaster  and  death  not  only 
to  Mr.  Beecher,  but  also  to  whomsoever  of  his  friends  should 
essay  to  show  themselves  friendly.  At  last  bold  placards  ap- 
peared, some  of  them  deriding  and  belying  the  Union  Cause,  and 
all  of  them  defaming  Mr.  Beecher  and  avowing  that  he  should  not 
speak  in  Liverpool.  "  The  Free-love  Monster,"  "  The  Nigger 
Worshipper,"  "  The  Clown  Preacher,"  "  The  Arch  Insurrection- 
ist," were  specimens  of  the  epithets  flaming  upon  thousands  of 
posters  and  paid  for  with  rebel  funds.  Many  of  them  also  were 
laden  with  such  alleged  base  quotations  from  purported  speeches 
and  even  from  sermons  as  would  prove  Mr.  Beecher  to  be  the 
father  of  all  heresies  and  the  instigator  of  all  crimes,  not  one  of 
which,  I  venture  to  say,  savored  of  the  least  tincture  of  genuine- 
ness. The  place  was  pointed  out  to  me  where  Mr.  Beecher  was 
watched  for  to  appear,  every  approaching  vehicle  scrutinized  ;  the 
place,  also  quite  remote  from  this  public  entrance,  to  the  rear  and 
obscure,  to  which  through  an  alley  and  in  an  indifferent  convey- 
ance he  was  at  last  quietly  driven  ;  the  dingy  halls  and  staircases, 
perhaps  never  before  used  by  any  prominent  occupant  of  that 
great  platform,  to  which  they  at  last  led  him.  The  immense  audi- 
torium was  packed.  It  seemed  that  at  least  one  half  were  stand- 
ing and  jostling  in  a  confused  state  of  expectancy.  Mingled  jeers, 
oaths  and  threats  filled  the  unsteady  atmosphere,  while  the  sight 
of  bludgeons  and  brickbats  and  pistols  openly  exhibited  aggravated 
the  awful  menace  of  the  perilous  situation.  Long  before  the  hero 
of  the  occasion  appeared,  the  police  had  whispered  among  them- 
selves the  utter  futility  of  undertaking  to  quiet  such  a  furious  mass 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      381 

of  seething  frenzy.     Even  the  officers  of  the  unusually  large  force 
felt  inclined  to  yield  the  attempt,  and  communicated  their  fears 
freely  to  the  managers  of  the  occasion.     Mr.  Beechcr  was  for  a 
little  time  held  in  abeyance,  while  earnest  consultation  was  had, 
until,  stating  positively  to  them  that  he  had  not  the  slightest  fear, 
he  was  suddenly  ushered  upon  the  platform  and  Charles  Robert- 
son, Esq.,  the  chairman,  advanced  to  give  some  words  of  intro- 
duction, which  stayed  for  a  little   the   clamorous  hosts  of  rebel 
chiefs,    capitalists,    refugees,    sympathizing    foreign    friends,    and 
hired  bullies  into  something  of  attention.      But  this  was  only  a 
little  lull  of  the  freighted  storm  which  burst  forth  as  Mr.  Beecher 
was  brought  to  the  front.      The  uproar  was  terrific.      Oaths,  vio- 
lent  threats    and    weapons,    thickened    the    air.       Some,    panic- 
stricken,    were    making    fruitless    attempts   to    escape    from    the 
danger.     Mr.    Beecher's  voice   was   for   once   powerless  and  he 
stopped.     The  chairman  in  vain  tried  to  force  back  the  impetuous 
Niagara  with   words,  and  to  command  silence.      The  fixed  deter- 
mination that  Mr.  Beecher  should  not  speak  was  the  one  decree  of 
the  mob.     The  chief  of  the  police  force  informed  the  chairman 
that  the  attempt  to  secure  order  was  useless,  and  that  awful  blood- 
shed was  imminent,  and  the  chairman  at  last  went  to  the  front  to 
the  relief  of  Mr.  Beecher,  proposing  a  retreat,  and  emphasizing 
the  danger  of  the  scene  ;  but  was  more  amazed  than  assured  by 
the  calm  reply  that  came  with  a  smile,  "  Oh,  they  won't  hurt  me, 
and  I'll  get  them  to  listen  pretty  soon."     The  waves  of  pandemo- 
nium rolled  frothing  and  breaking  toward  the   portly   but   mild 
figure  upon  the  platform,  whose  words  were  like  a  straw  shaken  at 
the  fury  of  the   sea  from  Gibraltar.      And  this  volcano  did  not 
cease  its  roaring  for  nearly  forty  minutes.      At  length  Mr.  Beecher 
suddenly  squatted  low,  and  asked  a  person  nearly  before  him  a 
direct,   irrelevant   question,    which   secured   a  spontaneous   reply. 
The  whole  assembly  was  dashed  with  surprise.      A  second  ques- 
tion quickly  followed,  and  the  answer  to  that  quickly  came  ;  then 


382  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

other  questions  rapidly — maintaining  the  same  position.  The  few 
immediately  in  front  of  tlie  platform  in  their  intense  effort  to  hear 
the  "  conversation  "  held  up  hands  turned  against  the  tumult,  say- 
ing, "  Hear,  hear  !"  Wider  grew  the  circle  of  those  who  really 
did  hear.  Mr.  Beecher's  questions  with  strange  instinct  grew 
gradually  and  adroitly  more  lengthy,  while  his  position  slowly 
grew  toward  the  erect,  until  the  mob  was  like  magic  transformed, 
against  its  solid  will,  into  a  listening  audience,  and  soon  even 
touched  with  smiles. 

]SIy  guide  informed  me  that  after  the  speech  hundreds  crowded 
forward  to  get  a  nearer  view  of  their  conqueror  and  possibly  even 
to  grasp  his  hand  as  the  vast  audience  slowly  dispersed  with 
repeated  expressions  of  profoundest  regard  for  Mr.  Beecher.  He 
said  also  that  when  the  room  was  cared  for  the  next  morning,  a 
literal  cart-load  of  bludgeons  and  brickbats  were  found  upon  the 
floor.  It  is  doubtful  if  all  the  world's  history  of  eloquence  can 
furnish  so  great  an  instance  as  this  "  stooping  to  conquer." 

THE    COMFORT    OF    SIMPLE    WORSHIP. 

On  one  occasion  about  the  time  of  the  outbreak  of  the  troubles 
in  Plymouth  Church,  as  I  was  entering  the  prayer-meeting 
through  the  hall  at  the  rear  of  the  platform,  several  of  the  breth- 
ren were  lying  in  wait  for  their  pastor,  and  as  he  hastily  entered 
they  very  kindly  and  briefly  .said  to  him  that  they  did  not  want  at 
all  to  dictate  his  themes,  but  only  to  say  to  him  that  in  that  room 
there  were  more  than  a  thousand  people  who  were  suffering  over 
the  miserable  rumors  just  afloat,  and  their  grief  "  is  really  because 
they  think  you  are  suffering,  and  we  wanted  to  tell  you  that  if 
you  can  say  some  words  of  comfort  to  them  it  will  do  great  good." 
"I'll  do  it,"  said  Mr.  Beecher,  as  he  brushed  along  and  passed 
into  the  room.  It  was  quite  time  for  commencing,  and  he  had 
scarcely  reached  his  seat,  when,  grasping  the  Plymouth  Collection, 
he  announced  "  803."     The  piano  started  promptly  and  the  con- 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       383 

gregation  sang  with  great  spirit,  "  When  I  can  read  my  title 
clear."  Then  followed  his  prayer,  pleading  that  God  in  the 
person  of  his  Holy  Spirit  would  dwell  in  every  heart,  so  enrich- 
ing the  inner  life  that  his  own  children  might  be  superior  to  all  of 
the  crucifixions  of  the  earth  that  are  left  for  us.  All  eyes  were 
moistened  as  they  again  sang,  "  Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee,"  and 
then  remarks  evidently  impromptu  in  the  same  thought  as  the 
prayer.  He  made  not  the  slightest  allusion  to  any  rumors,  but 
dismissed  them  with  the  expiration  of  the  hour,  and  the  brethren 
again  sought  him,  evidently  at  a  doubt  whether  their  request  had 
been  ignored  by  him,  or  had  been  in  the  fullest  degree  complied 
with.  So  he  broke  the  matter  with  one  remark,  "  Well,  I  said 
enough  about  the  rumors,  didn't  I  ?"  And  they  seemed  satisfied 
that  he  had. 

REVULSIONS    OF    FEELING. 

It  has  been  a  matter  of  great  interest  to  me  to  observe  the 
singular  and  entire  change  of  sentiment  which  comes  about  with 
those  who  have  been  bitterly  prejudiced  against  Mr.  Beecher,  on 
their  becoming  personally  acquainted  with  him  and  with  Plymouth 
Church.  Many  are  the  families  who  have  known  him  at  a  dis- 
tance and  only  through  the  newspapers,  who  with  their  neighbors 
have  brooded  over  the  alleged  awfulness  about  him  and  fostered 
their  bitterness  until  it  was  absolutely  venomous,  but  who,  on 
removing  to  Brooklyn  or  New  York,  and  attending  Plymouth 
Church  at  first  as  they  would  a  menagerie,  have  forthwith  in  won- 
derful charm  renounced  their  prejudice  altogether,  and  become 
most  enthusiastic  admirers  and  friends  of  both  the  church  and  the 
pastor.  Old  neighbors  on  hearing  of  it  draw  a  terrible  sigh  and 
say,  "  They,  too,  bewitched  !  how  can  it  be  ?  What  a  fearful 
influence  that  man  does  exert  !" 

An  ex-Confederate  officer  who  was  to  spend  some  time  in  New 
York  and  vicinity  said  to  me,  "  Yes,  T  am  going  to  hear  Beecher, 
for  I  never  saw  him.  It  would  do  me  good  to  take  a  rifle  along 
and  just  send  a  bullet  through  him  as  he  stands  in  the  pulpit  pre- 


384:  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

tending  to  preach  the  Gospel.  If  some  one  had  done  it  years  ago, 
the  country  would  have  been  a  heap  better  off,  but  now  that  his 
influence  is  all  gone  I  don't  know  but  he  may  as  well  live." 
Such  was  the  expression  of  this  chivalric  man  who  was  to  be  my 
companion  to  hear  Mr.  Beecher  preach  in  the  evening  of  the  first 
Sunday  in  May,  1865,  and  to  which  I  made  only  an  indifferent 
reply.  Seated  in  the  church  before  the  time  of  service,  I  could 
scarcely  endure  the  whispered  criticisms  and  the  ebullitions  of  the 
rankest  prejudice  poured  out  against  the  crowd  that  was  packing 
the  building,  the  building  itself,  the  organ,  the  style  of  pulpit, 
and  its  furniture,  and  even  against  the  innocent  flowers  that 
adorned  it.  Even  the  incomparable  singing  did  not  seem  to  sub- 
due the  evil  spirit  which  held  possession  of  the  soul  beside  me. 
But  the  prayer  touched  upon  those  who  carried  bitterness  in  their 
hearts  and  were  at  enmity  with  men  and  with  God,  and  plead  for 
those  who  had  been  disappointed,  and  who  had  been  hurt,  and 
not  profited  by  it,  and  the  prayer,  I  could  see,  had  quieted  if  it 
had  not  subdued.  The  sermon  was  not  long  commenced  until  the 
sneer  had  gone  from  the  countenance.  It  was  evident  that  a  great 
struggle  was  taking  place  in  the  mistaken  soul  of  my  acquaintance, 
for  tears  several  times  moistened  his  eyes.  After  the  service  we 
walked  to  the  ferry  arm  in  arm  and  in  entire  silence.  He  was 
ve'ry  serious  and  I  waited  for  him  to  speak  first.  "  I  swear,  I 
believe  I  have  been  most  egregiously  mistaken  about  that  man," 
said  he.  "  No  proposition  was  ever  clearer  to  me,"  was  my 
reply.  "  It  don't  seem  put  on,"  said  he  ;  "  he  seems  to  feel,  and 
that  deeply,  everything  he  says."  The  next  Sunday  he  desired 
an  introduction  to  Mr.  Beecher,  declaring  his  intention  to  hear  the 
greatest  preacher  in  the  two  cities  at  every  service  and  every  prayer- 
meeting  during  his  stay,  and  from  that  time  to  this,  though  nearly 
two  thousand  miles  away,  he  will  not  brook  that  any  one  should 
say  a  word  against  Mr.  Beecher.  This  case  is  only  one  of  several 
of  nearly  the  same  interest  that  have  come  under  vaj  own  obser- 
vation. 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      385 

XXL 
By  rev.  father  KEEGA.N,  VICAR-GENERAL. 

Pastor  of  the  York  Street  Roman  Catholic  Church,  Brooklyn,  New  York. 

There  are  many  subjects  upon  which  Mr.  Beecher  and  myself 
could  not  be  in  accord  with  each  other.  Our  education  and 
habits  of  life  are  very  different.  We  have  studied  theology  and 
ethics  in  schools  almost  in  direct  opposition  to  one  another,  yet 
I  am  proud  to  say  that  there  are  many  things  in  which  we  are  in 
perfect  sympathy.  In  matters  purely  secular  and  in  true  philan- 
thropy, I  regard  Mr.  Beecher  as  second  to  no  man  in  the  land  ; 
he  seems  instinctively  to  love  liberty  and  to  hate  tyranny  and 
oppression.  He  has  a  heart  to  feel  for  the  poor,  and  a  hand 
ever  ready  to  extend  his  charity  to  the  distressed  ;  no  matter  to 
him  when  or  where  the  cry  of  distress  reaches  him.  Whether  it 
be  the  sorrow  and  poverty  at  our  own  door,  or  whether  the  wail 
comes  across  the  ocean,  his  mind  is  too  comprehensive  and  his 
charity  too  cosmopolitan  to  make  any  distinction.  I  wish  Mr. 
Beecher  many  years  of  happiness  in  this  life,  and  eternal  peace 
hereafter. 


XXIL 
By  JESSE  SELIGMAN, 

Of  New  York  City. 


I  EAGERLY  cmbracc  this  opportunity  to  lay  my  tribute  upon 
the  altar  of  Mr.  Beecher's  fame.  As  a  mere  friend,  one  of  the 
many  warm  admirers  of  the  man  and  his  career,  admirers  as 
numerous  as  the  hundreds  of  thousands  that  at  one  time  or  another 
have  been  witnesses  of  his  strength,   I  should  hardly  feel  called 


386  HENRY   WARD    BEECHER. 

upon  to  join  in  the  cliorus  of  praise  that  so  welcomes  every  occa- 
sion to  do  him  honor.  We  have  grown  to  look  upon  Mr.  Bfiecher 
and  honest,  enthusiastic  applause,  almost  as  inseparable  com- 
panions, and  his  place  among  the  great  public  men  of  our  day 
is  unshakingly  established. 

But  it  is  not  simply  as  a  member  of  the  same  community,  not 
simply  as  a  fellow- American,  that  I  seek  to  help  bring  home  to 
him  the  admiration  he  everywhere  commands.  It  is  as  the  Jew, 
as  one  who  speaks  for  that  persecuted,  long-suffering  people,  that 
at  one  time  had  almost  forgotten  to  believe  in  aught  but  hard 
blows  and  misery.  But,  thank  God,  those  old  days  of  Ghetto 
and  Inquisition  are  past  ;  ay,  even  the  old  days  of  Puritanism 
and  tantalizing  social  oppression.  Great,  honest,  sturdy,  liberal- 
minded  men  have  been  at  work,  men  with  the  spirit  of  God 
strong  within  them,  to  batter  down  the  stubborn  walls  of  bigotry 
and  fanaticism  ;  men  that  felt  the  existence  of  the  common  father- 
hood of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man  ;  men  that  paved  tlie 
way  for  a  Declaration  of  Independence  with  its  freedom  and 
equality  for  all  ;  men,  at  length,  of  the  mind  and  heart  and  soul 
of  a  Henry  Ward  Beechcr  ! 

Even  in  these  days  of  political  enfranchisement,  however,  the 
Jew  has  known  the  galling  yoke  of  social  discrimination,  and  only 
yesterday  the  world  had  to  protest  against  anti-Semitic  agita- 
tions. Our  people  have  had  strong  champions,  stout  defenders, 
but  none  more  pronounced,  more  brave,  more  vigorous,  none 
more  emphatic  in  loyalty  and  friendship  to  this  people  than  Mr. 
Beecher  ;  and  therefore  the  Jew,  as  the  Jew,  demands  as  his 
special  privilege  the  right  to  indulge  his  gratitude  by  bearing 
witness,  not  alone  to  the  oratory,  the  learning,  and  the  grace,  but 
to  the  large  heart,  liberal  mind,  and  public  spirit  of  this  eminent 
preacher. 

I  am  one  of  that  large  body  who  will  always  deem  it  a  signal 
honor  to  be  counted  among  the  friends  of  Mr.  Beecher. 


1 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       387 

XXIII. 
By  rev.  T.  J.  CONANT,  D.D. 

My  acquaintance  with  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  com- 
menced in  the  year  1847.  It  was  on  the  occasion  of  his  first 
Sabbath  service  with  the  Plymouth  Church,  of  which  he  became 
the  pastor.  I  heard  him  but  once,  and  was  struck  with  the  fresh- 
ness and  originality  of  his  thoughts,  then  as  ever  since  characteris- 
tic of  the  man. 

In  the  following  year  we  again  met  at  Hamilton,  where  I  then 
resided.  There,  in  the  social  circles  in  which  w-e  daily  met,  I 
saw  much  of  his  inward  life  ;  and  I  observed  in  him  traits  of 
character  that  won  my  confidence  and  esteem,  ripening  at  lenijth 
into  a  life-long  friendship.  For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
he  has  been  one  of  my  most  intimate  and  trusted  friends,  and  no 
guest  is  more  welcome  in  our  family  circle  and  at  the  fireside. 

Of  the  public  labors  and  influence  of  a  man  so  widely  known, 
it  is  superfluous  to  speak.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  no  other 
preacher  in  this  country  wields  a  personal  influence  over  so  many 
minds.  Crowds  throng  the  large  assembly  room,  and  crowds  go 
away  unable  to  obtain  admission.  His  discourses  are  rich  in 
practical  instruction  for  old  and  young  ;  and  his  words  of  encour- 
agement, salutary  warnings,  and  scathing  rebukes  of  wrong,  can- 
not fail  of  their  effect.  As  I  look  round  on  that  sea  of  upturned 
faces,  I  feel  that  the  power  he  wields  for  good  is  not  to  be 
estimated.  For  though  his  speculative  views  are  not  all  in  accord 
with  my  own,  yet  in  the  main  point,  the  scriptural  doctrine  of 
Christ  as  the  central  source  of  all  spiritual  life,  the  sinners'  only 
hope  of  reconciliation  with  God  and  salvation  from  sin,  is  fully 
and  earnestly  set  forth. 

Of  his  wide  influence  for  good,  beyond  his  own  personal  sphere, 
it  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  speak.  His  name  will  be  held  in  long 
and  grateful  remembrance  in  our  own  and  in  other  lands. 


388  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

XXIV. 

By   prof.    G.    B.    WILLCOX,    D.D., 

Of  the  Congregational  Theological  Seminary,  Chicago,  Illinois. 

I  HAVE  long  been  .an  admirer  of  Mr.  Beecher  and  shall  bewail 
the  day  when  he  shall  be  summoned  away  from  among  us.  I  say 
us,  because  he  belongs  to  the  whole  country,  not  to  Plymouth 
Church  or  Brooklyn  alone.  I  suppose  that  is  true  of  him,  as  a 
pulpit  orator,  which  never  has  been  true  before  of  any  preacher  in 
this  country,  and,  after  his  departure,  never  will  be  true  again. 
It  is  this  :  if,  in  any  company  of  intelligent  persons,  you  should 
speak  of  the  foremost  preacher  on  this  continent  without  mention- 
ing his  name,  nine  persons  in  every  ten  would  know  whom  you 
meant.  We  are  not  likely  to  see  again  a  man  who  towers,  in  that 
way,  like  Saul,  head  and  shoulders  above  his  brethren. 

I  suppose  almost  every  one  who  has  ever  heard  Mr.  Beecher 
much  has  some  one  scene,  or  more,  that  is  stamped  indelibly  on 
his  memory.  The  one  that  I  shall  carry  in  memory  to  my  grave 
was  the  speech  in  the  old  Tabernacle  for  the  Edmonson  sisters. 
You  will  remember  that  they  were  two  of  a  party  of  seventy 
slaves  who  attempted  to  escape  in  the  schooner  Pearl  from  Alex- 
andria, Va.  They  were  pursued,  recaptured,  brought  back  to  the 
slave-pen,  and  these  two  young  ladies  (for  they  were  ladies)  were 
to  be  sold  to  New  Orleans.  They  were  attractive,  and,  as  a 
thousand  dollars  apiece  was  demanded  for  them,  while  their 
labor  would  not  be  worth  a  third  of  that,  everybody  who  heard  of 
the  case  understood  what  fate  awaited  them.  Bruin  &  Hill,  the 
slave  dealers,  said  they  would  as  leave  take  an  abolitionist's  money 
as  anybody's  else.  They  gave  the  father  of  the  young  maidens  a 
letter  certifying  their  good  character,  especially  as  "  Methodist 
Christians,"  and  the  old  man,  who  was  free,  came  North  with  his 
great  burden  of  anguish,  heavy  as  Pilgrim's  load  in  the  Slough  of 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      389 

Despond,  begging  for  money  to  ransom  his  children  from  shame. 
He  reached  Mr.  Beecher's  house,  which  was  the  Mecca  for  all 
such  pilgrims,  and  Mr.  Beecher  at  once  took  him  into  his  heart, 
and  posters  went  out  calling  a  meeting  in  the  Tabernacle,  with 
the  Plymouth  pastor  as  chief  speaker.  Of  course  the  house  was 
crammed.  Mr.  Beecher  announced,  early  in  his  address,  that  he 
expected  two  thousand  dollars  from  the  audience  before  they  left 
the  house.  He  had  the  letter  from  Bruin  (whose  name  ought  to 
have  been  translated,  he  said)  &  Hill  in  his  hand.  He  proceeded 
to  read  it,  commenting  as  he  went  on.  As  he  reached  the  phrase 
in  which  the  writers  commended  the  religious  character  of  their 
chattels,  "  I  can  fancy,"  he  said,  "  a  scoffing  demon  standing 
behind  to  point  over  the  shoulder  of  this  trafficker  in  flesh  and 
blood  and  the  honor  of  womanhood,  with  long,  skinny  finger  and 
a  leer  in  his  eye  at  this  '  Christian  slave  !  '  "  And  then  he  went 
on  to  set  forth  the  fact  that  all  those  qualities,  which,  if  in  the 
North  they  belonged  to  a  free  citizen,  Avould  raise  his  position  and 
influence  in  society,  would,  in  the  South,  if  they  belonged  to  a 
slave,  only  raise  his  price  in  the  market.  "  Here,"  he  said,  "  is 
a  splendid  fellow — a  noble  specimen  of  God's  image  carved  in 
ebony — brought  on  the  auction-block  for  sale.  And  the  auctioneer 
tells  ofi  his  points.  He  begins  with  his  physical  qualities.  *  A 
capital  hand,  gentlemen,  six  feet  two  in  his  stockings,  well  laced 
and  braced  with  muscles,  sound  as  a  nut  and  stout  as  an  ox — what 
do  you  bid?'  'Four  hundred, '' five  hundred,'  bids  coming 
slowly.  And  then  he  goes  to  the  mental  traits.  *  A  quick-witted 
nigger,  gentlemen  !  As  good  a  fellow  for  a  driver  as  you  ever  had 
on  your  place.  How  much  ?  '  '  Six  fifty,'  '  seven  hundred.'  Then 
come  the  moral  qualities.  *  As  honest  a  fellow  as  the  day  is  long, 
will  take  the  proceeds  of  your  cotton-crop  to  Charleston  and  in- 
vest, and  bring  back  your  bank  certificates  as  well  as  you  would 
do  it  yourselves — how  much?'  'Seven  fifty,'  'eight  hundred.' 
'  And  more  than  all  that,  gentlemen,  they  say  he's  one  of  these 
24 


390  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

prayin'  Methodist  niggers,  who  bids  ? '  'A  thousand  ! '  *  Fifteen 
hundred  ! '  '  Two  thousand  ! '  '  Twenty-five  hundred  ! '  "  I  have 
seen  audiences  thrilled,  but  I  hardly  ever  saw  one  so  perfectly 
frenzied  with  excitement  as  they  were,  while  that  picture  was 
drawn.  He  spoke  for  three  quarters  of  an  hour  ;  and  then,  hav- 
ing a  secretary  ready  with  writing  materials,  called  for  subscrip- 
tions. These  ran  up  to  about  fifteen  hundred  dollars  and  then 
flagged.  Mr.  Beecher  tramped  the  platform  with  another  speech 
of  perhaps  fifteen  minutes,  and  the  pledge  went  up,  with  a  bound, 
to  two  thousand.  The  sisters  were  brought  North,  and  I  attended 
a  second  meeting,  congratulatory,  at  which  they  were  present. 

My  time  fails,  and  I  can  add  only  in  regard  to  the  great  Plym- 
outh Pastor,  in  whom  I  see  faults,  but  in  whom  I  have  never 
lost  faith,  God  bless  him  to  the  end  of  his  days,  and  may  his  days 
be  long. 


XXV. 

By  rabbi   LTLIENTHAL,  D.D., 

Of  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

The  ancient  rabbis  used  to  say  that  "  a  wise  man  grows  wiser 
and  greater  with  his  age."  The  adage  applies  to  Henry  Ward 
Beecher.  Every  one  of  his  lectures  and  sermons,  brimful  of  orig- 
inal thought,  shows  a  continuous  advance  in  "  light  and  truth," 
that  breast-plate  motto  of  the  High  Priest  in  Jerusalem. 

There  is  not  a  spark  of  prejudice  or  intolerance  in  Beecher.  We 
always  find  him  on  the  side  of  liberty  and  liberality,  of  right 
against  might,  a  stern,  stout  advocate  of  all  the  oppressed  and  per- 
secuted. We  Israelites  hailed  with  thanksgiving  his  thundering 
protest  against  the  anti-Semitic  agitation  in  Germany.  He  does 
not  bow  to  public  opinion  ;  public  opinion  bows  to  him.     Wher- 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.        393 

ever  a  prejudice,  and  let  it  be  never  so  deeply  rooted,  lurks  in  the 
dark  ;  wherever  misuse  or  abuse,  the  inheritance  of  obsolete  custom 
and  ages,  resists  the  bright  influence  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
Beecher  fearlessly  enters  the  lists,  and  challenges  the  enemy  with 
a  boldness  that  has  won  for  him  the  admiration  and  applause  of 
both  continents.  There  is  life  in  his  words,  and  the  life  questions 
which  he  handles  and  elucidates  in  his  unique  and  masterly  manner, 
continue  to  secure  to  him  the  hearts  of  the  people.  He  is  both 
American  and  cosmopolitan,  and  therefore  the  enlightened  of 
every  creed,  race,  and  color,  love  and  applaud  this  great  thinker, 
preacher,  and  orator. 

My  prayer  is  that  as  many  years  of  such  usefulness  as  have  been 
vouchsafed  to  him  in  the  past  may  yet  be  spared  to  him. 


XXVI. 
By  rev.  GEORGE  DOUGLASS,  LL.D., 

Of  the  Wesleyan  Theological  University,  Montreal,  Canada. 

The  colossal  grandeur  of  Mr.  Beecher' s  endowment  and  char- 
acter is  such  that  I  feel  utterly  inadequate  to  pen  anything  worthy 
his  peerless  powers.  Nearly  thirty  years  have  come  and  gone 
since  I  first  heard  him  on  a  bright  autumnal  morning.  That  dis- 
course on  "  The  Trial  of  Faith  "  was  to  me  a  new  revelation  and 
is  as  fresh  in  my  memory,  while  I  dictate  this,  as  the  hour  I  heard 
it.  For  more  than  twenty  years  I  read  his  discourses  in  The  In- 
dependent and  elsewhere.  I  have  been  obliged  to  study  the  his- 
tory of  the  pulpit  from  the  post-apostolic,  patristic,  and  mediaeval 
ages  downward,  and  I  declare  my  solemn  conviction,  a  conviction 
which  I  constantly  affirm,  that  the  ages  have  never  produced  a 
man  so  marvellously  endowed  as  Mr.  Beecher.  I  hold  that  he 
unveils  the  character  of  God,  expounds  the  principles  of  his  govern- 


394  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

nient  in  its  material  and  ethical  relations,  propounds  tlie 
philosophy  of  human  life  with  an  original  power  that  I,  at  least, 
cannot  find  elsewhere  in  literature  ;  while  his  perennial  power 
of  illustration,  which  springs  from  his  mind  fresh  and  clear  as  the 
crystal  fountain,  with  the  undertone  of  reverential  regard  and 
pervarling  unction,  makes  him  a  preacher  without  an  equal  in  the 
past  or  a  compeer  in  the  present.  The  pregnant  future  holds 
many  a  surprise,  but  I  greatly  doubt  if  a  man,  take  him  all  in  all, 
will  be  found  in  the  pulpit  so  regally  endowed  for  a  thousand 
years  to  come. 


XXVII. 

By  general   CLINTON  B.    FISK. 

I  HAVE  loved  Henry  Ward  Beecher  for  thirty-three  years. 
When  I  was  a  boy-merchant  and  visited  New  York  from  the  West 
to  purchase  goods,  I  did  not  fail  to  hear  him  preach  one  or 
more  times  during  my  frequent  sojourns  there.  His  words  in- 
spired me  with  ambition  to  be  a  good  man.  I  was  by  his  minis- 
trations brought  nearer  to  my  Lord  and  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ.  I 
was  inspired  by  him  to  hate  slavery,  to  love  my  country,  and  do 
all  I  could  to  promote  the  cause  of  Liberty  and  Union.  I  have  ever 
regarded  him  as  the  most  remarkable  man  of  these  times,  as  the 
ablest  and  most  eloquent  preacher  of  the  gospel  in  his  day  and 
generation.  In  some  things  I  have  not  been  in  hearty  sympathy 
with  him,  and  I  have  wished  that  he  had  done  some  things  differ- 
ently ;  yet  I  have  remembered  that  he  was  human,  and  that  words 
and  actions  I  might  criticise  were  but  his  title  deeds  to  a  place  in 
our  common  humanity.  Of  his  absolute  integrity  of  heart  and 
purpose,  of  his  unquestionable  purity  of  life  and  thought,  I  have 
never  had  a  shadow  of  doubt,  and  when  the  storms  beat  upon  him 
I  drew  the  closer  to  his  side,  and  there  remain  and  expect  to  stay 


ANALYSES  OP  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.     395 

until  we  strike  glad  hands  of  fellowship  where  all  hearts  will  be 
open  to  the  scrutiny  of  the  just,  made  perfect  in  the  pre&^nce  of 
Him  who  has  blessed  the  world  by  giving  to  it  so  noble  and  true  a 
man.  May  the  Lord  preserve  him  for  many  years  to  prea^b  the 
Gospel,  and  inspire  his  fellow- men  to  lead  manly,  Christian,  b*ave 
lives,  is  the  prayer  of  one  who  would  be  glad  to  say  more  for  one 
whom  he  loves  as  a  father,  teacher,  and  guide. 


XXVIII. 
By  JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  is  unmistakably  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable men  of  his  time.  His  fame  as  a  pulpit  orator  has  gone 
wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken.  On  the  platform  he  has 
few  equals.  As  a  life-long  friend  of  freedom  he  has  gained  what 
Milton  calls  "  a  freehold  of  rejoicing  to  him  and  his  heirs"  in  the 
emancipation  of  the  slave.  I  scarcely  know  how  to  class  him  as  a 
theologian,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  his  influence  has  been  felt 
throughout  Protestantism  in  softening  intolerance,  and  promoting 
brotherly  love  and  charity  ;  as  a  citizen  and  patriot  he  has  never 
been  found  wanting  in  acts  of  private  beneficence  or  the  public 
advocacy  t>f  the  great  interests  of  his  country.  His  noble  vindi- 
cation of  the  cause  of  the  Union  during  our  civil  war  against  the 
denunciations  of  the  English  press  and  the  violence  of  English 
mobs  endeared  him  to  all  loyal  hearts.  The  slave,  the  prisoner, 
the  poor,  the  sick  and  afflicted  are  his  friends. 

I  had  never  the  pleasure  of  hearing  him  but  once.  He  was  in 
his  Plymouth  pulpit,  and  in  the  midst  of  his  immense  and  sympa- 
thizing audience.  His  sermon  was  a  most  eloquent  presentation 
of  the  gospel  of  love,  warm,  tender  and  irresistibly  attractive. 
Listening  to  it  I  could  well  understand  the  secret  of  his  general 
popularity  and  the  intense  admiration  of  his  immediate  friends. 


396  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

XXIX. 
By  rev.  EUGENE  BERSIER,  D.D., 

Pastor  of  the  Reformed  Church  of  Paris,  France. 

In  response  to  your  letter,  in  whicli  you  do  rae  the  honor  to 
address  me  on  the  subject  of  "  Henry  Ward  Beecher, "  I  am  eager 
to  reply  that,  although  few  of  his  lectures  and  sermons  have  been 
translated  into  French,  he  is  known  to  our  people.  I  have  often 
had  occasion  to  speak  about  him  in  the  journal  published  by  my 
colleague,  M.  Pressense.  I  have  cited  several  of  his  admirable 
protestations  against  slavery,  and  these  citations  have  largely  con- 
tributed to  enlighten  the  thought  in  proving  that  the  most  energetic 
Christian  faith  is  to  be  found  in  detestation  of  all  oppression. 
This  is  the  secret  of  his  great  force  of  thought. 

I  remember,  when  quite  young,  in  1850,  in  the  United  States, 
I  received  a  very  vivid  impression  in  hearing  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
in  the  Plymouth  Tabernacle.  This  sermon,  so  new,  so  vivid,  so 
aggressive,  revealed  to  me  a  new  way  of  preaching,  from  which 
later  on  I  tried  to  profit. 

I  should  feel  very  happy  if  this  testimony  can  be  placed  in  his 
biography. 


By   rev.  DAVID   SWING,  D.D., 

Of  Chicago. 

[AN   EXTEACT   FEOM   A   SEEMON   SENT   BY     THE   AUTHOE     FOR     PUBLICATION    IN 
THIS    VOLUME.] 

Society  is  engaged  chiefly  in  the  effort  to  become  established  in 
the  right  path.     It  has  always  been  pondering  the  way  over  which 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       397 

it  lias  been  making  its  long  march.  Politics  is  a  pondering  over  the 
way  of  the  State,  agriculture  a  study  of  the  fields,  mechanics  a 
study  of  forces  and  the  application  of  these  forces.  Crossing  into 
the  moral  world  the  author  of  these  ancient  proverbs  advises  all  of 
us  to  ponder  that  peculiar  path,  and  if  possible  find  or  make  solid, 
enduring  ways.  The  claim  of  Christianity  that  it  is  an  inspired 
way  and  truth  does  not  terminate  this  wonderment,  for  the  in- 
quiry. What  do  the  words  of  the  sacred  books  mean  ?  rises  and 
faithfully  follows  the  mind  of  man.  Man  as  a  Christian  or  as  a 
student  of  truth  or  as  a  religionist  in  the  widest  sense  cannot  per- 
haps ever  reach  a  point  in  wisdom  and  virtue  at  which  he  can 
cease  from  his  labors  over  the  problem  of  religion.  If  he  affirms 
that  his  Bible  is  inspired  he  will  be  perplexed  with  the  question, 
What  is  that  inspiration  ?  if  he  believes  that  his  sin  has  been 
atoned  for,  he  will  not  easily  determine  the  question,  What  is  that 
atonement  ?  if  he  becomes  fully  assured  that  there  is  a  future  life, 
he  will  be  followed  all  through  this  world  by  many  and  varying 
surmises  as  to  what  may  be  the  nature  of  the  future  lot  of  the 
righteous  and  the  wicked.  This  debate,  sometimes  loud  and  some- 
times soft,  will  never  close,  for  only  the  Infinite  can  know  any- 
thing to  perfection.  Upon  each  part  of  man's  landscape  there 
falls  something  of  shadow. 

Any  one  looking  out  at  the  present  time  must  perceive  that 
some  new  interpreters  of  Christianity  have  come  and  have  come  in 
quite  a  fulness  of  power,  and  have,  as  by  the  hands  of  giants, 
hurled  upon  our  times  new  mountains  of  thought.  We  were  all 
reminded  a  few  days  ago  that  one  of  these  sons  of  a  new  thunder, 
and  the  greatest  of  all  those  who  are  speaking  in  our  century,  has 
been  standing  in  one  pulpit  for  thirty-three  years.  lie  is  now 
baptizing  little  children  whose  fathers  and  mothers  he  baptized 
when  they  were  too  young  to  speak  or  walk.  Thirty-three  years 
of  religious  eloquence  rolling  forth  from  an  unrivalled  mind  and 
from  a  warm,  tumultuous  heart,  what  a  spectacle  even  in  our  world 


398  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

of  wonders  !  Having  descended  by  lineage  and  having  ascended 
by  his  mind  and  soul  from  an  old  and  quite  iron-like  shape  of 
Christianity,  Henry  Ward  Beeclier  stands  in  a  significant  sense 
for  oar  Christian  period,  and  with  more  or  less  distinctness  pro- 
claims the  quality  of  the  recent  interpretations  of  the  religion  of 
the  Man  of  Nazareth.  He  possessed  in  the  outset  of  his  career  a 
rare  intellect,  a  mind  like  that  of  Goethe's,  which  is  said  to  ha^^c 
looked  out  through  a  thousand  eyes,  and  to  such  an  all-sweeping 
sight  he  added  a  sympathetic  heart  which  could  see  quickly  and 
well  the  wants  of  the  populace.  In  this  one  preacher  intellectual 
greatness  and  emotional  greatness  met  and  fitted  him  for  making  a 
logical  survey  of  the  Christian  theories  and  a  benevolent  study  of 
man.  Reason  and  kindness  combined  in  this  one  priest  at  the 
altar.  Imagination,  fancy,  wit,  pathos,  language,  originality, 
great  -enthusiasm,  great  happiness  and  great  physical  power  are 
some  of  the  virtues  and  blessings  which  a  kind  Heaven  bestowed 
upon  this  most  favored  child.  He  almost  contradicts  that  fable  of 
the  nightingale  which  teaches  us  that  nature  never  grants  all  good 
to  any  one  individual.  Coming  into  the  work  of  the  ministry 
over  forty  years  ago,  he  has  from  the  beginning  of  his  active  ser- 
vice been  a  new  interpreter  of  the  words  and  laws  and  dreams  of 
the  prevailing  Christianity,  He  has  been  revivalist  and  philoso- 
pher and  philanthropist  and  poet  and  politician  and  theologian 
quite  judiciously  mingled,  and  thus  has  moved  along,  not  as  a 
cannon-ball,  which  cuts  a  narrow  path,  but  as  a  gulf  stream  which 
finds  room  only  in  an  ocean  and  which  sweeps  from  a  Mexico  to  a 
Labrador.  This  man  has  not  made  all  of  the  recent  interpreta- 
tions of  Christianity,  but  he  has  been  a  very  potent  agency  in  the 
direction  of  reformed  thought.  Through  the  first  thirty  years  of 
this  significant  ministry  the  condition  and  rights  and  hopes  of  the 
American  slaves  entered  into  each  sermon  to  attract  an  audience 
and  to  thrill  them  when  attracted,  and  thus  what  new  renderings 
of  the  cardinal  doctrines  came  from  this  popular  orator  enjoyed 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      399 

tlie  advantage  of  being  decorated  by  charity  and  of  being  heard 
by  an  audience  and  a"  country  already  fully  aroused  by  sympathy 
for  the  oppressed  Africans.  Abolitionism  or  emancipation  and 
full  liberty  and  equality  became  the  musical  accompaniment  of 
what  was  said  by  the  same  voice  about  the  atonement  or  inspira- 
tion or  hell  or  heaven.  By  the  time  the  chains  of  the  slave  had 
fallen  many  theological  chains  had  also  fallen.  While  truth  for 
the  black  man  was  being  thought  out  there  was  in  preparation  at 
the  same  forge  truth  for  the  white  man  in  the  shop  or  field  or 
church.  The  brain  that  was  so  busy  with  the  effort  to  make  the 
Gospels  apply  to  the  cabin  of  the  negro  was  making  religion  apply 
to  the  cottage  of  the  white  man,  and  was  making  havoc  in  general 
of  all  abstruse  and  abstract  theology.  In  seeking  a  religion  for  a 
few,  Mr.  Beecher  uncovered  a  religion  for  all,  and  thus  while  de- 
vising a  faith  for  a  cotton-field  he  helped  develop  one  for  a  conti- 
nent. In  such  a  large  and  colossal  form  does  Mr.  Beecher  seem  to 
my  own  gaze  stepping  along  through  those  thirty-three  years  he 
has  just  closed. 

It  is  diflficult  to  make  a  survey  of  such  a  career  without  ceasing 
to  be  a  calm  critic  and  becoming  a  worshipper.  In  the  presence 
of  such  mental  resources  and  such  a  fame  the  heart  feels  enthu- 
siastic in  admiration,  and  would  ask  all  the  language  of  praise  to 
come  to  memory  and  help  compose  a  eulogy,  but  I  must  resist 
such  temptation  far  enough  to  confess  that  Mr.  Beecher  has  not 
been  a  clear  or  formal  exponent  of  a  new  Christianity,  not  always 
a  wise  adviser,  nor  has  he  always  been  in  harmony  with  himself  ; 
but  when  we  all  remember  with  what  a  power  of  logic  and  rhetoric 
he  has  asserted  and  maintained  the  truths  of  right  and  charity, 
the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  the  divineness  of  Christ,  the 
nearness  of  the  mortal  to  the  gates  of  immortality,  all  the  now  re- 
membered errors  or  discords  weigh  but  little  in  even  the  most 
exact  balances.  I  see  before  me  forty  years  of  valuable  service. 
I  stand  by  a  stream  of  eloquence  which  all  through  these  many 


400  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

summers  lias  never  once  gone  dry  nor  fallen  low,  but  whicli  has 
run  bank-full  of  waters  sweet  and  bright. 

To  this  greatest  name  upon  one  side  of  the  ocean  must  be 
added  some  master  minds  upon  that  other  margin  of  the  sea  whence 
came  all  our  early  good.  Thomas  Arnold  of  Rugby  memory  was 
a  forerunner  of  the  popular  Christianity  of  to-day.  He  went  out 
of  the  world's  service  just  as  Mr.  Beecher  was  coming  into  it,  and 
had  done  amid  English  graduates  and  learned  men  of  the  kingdom 
what  our  coming  pulpiteer  was  about  to  begin  among  the  people — 
make  Christianity  a  life  rather  than  a  formula.  Doctor  Arnold 
had  ho  use  for  a  strict  theological  system  ;  but  for  a  religion  that 
would  make  a  student  truthful  and  kind,  and  that  would  make  a 
thousand  boys  all  one  in  rank  and  all  brotherly  feelings,  he  had 
daily  need  ;  and  so  powerful  was  that  Rugby  Master  that  what  he 
planned  for  an  academy  became  a  revelation  to  an  empire.  As 
Mr.  Beecher  passed  from  a  slave  pen  to  a  continent,  so  Arnold  of 
Rugby  uttered  in  a  schoolhouse  thoughts  which  spread  out  and  col- 
ored a  century. 


By  rev.  ATTICUS   G.    HAYGOOD,    D.D., 

President  of  Emory  College,   Oxford,  Georgia,  and  Editor  of  the  "Wesleyan 
Christian  Advocate  ' '  at  Macon. 

[DESCRIPTION    OF     A    VISIT     TO     PLYMOUTH     CHUECH,     FKOM    THE    "WESLEYAN 
CHRISTIAN    ADVOCATE."] 

In  the  morning  we  heard  Mr.  Beecher.  The  polite  usher 
pointed  out  a  sort  of  waiting  seat  where  we,  with  many  others, 
could  rest  and  watch,  till  the  regular  pew-holders  were  provided 
for,  promising  a  better  place  later  on.  It  turned  out  well — our 
temporary  seat  gave  a  fine  view  of  the  congregation  as  the  people 
came  in,  first  by  ones,  then  by  twos,  and  a  little  before  preaching, 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.       401 

by  scores.     No  one  came  in  after  the  services  began  that  we  saw 
or  heard.     Mark  this  ! 

Such  a  crowd  as  that  which  meets  in  Plymouth  Church,  Brook- 
lyn, is  enough  to  inspire  any  man  with  a  soul  in  him.  There  was 
hardly  ever  a  plainer  front  to  a  better  audience-room.  Mr. 
Beecher's  auditorium  has  this  high  merit  in  a  Proliestant  church — 
it  was  arranged  for  hearers  and  not  for  mere  gazers.  The  Gothic, 
as  it  is  called,  belongs  properly  to  the  Roman  Catholics  ;  it  is 
adapted  to  spectacular  exhibitions  and  to  "  aesthetic"  effects. 
But  Gothic  architecture  is  no  friend  to  the  hearing  ear.  In  Plym- 
outh Church  people  can  hear  every  word  ;  our  place  was  in  the 
gallery,  but  the  lowest  tones  of  the  preacher  were  distinct.  Even 
his  distinct  and  perfectly  natural  articulation  could  not  overcome 
some  audience-rooms  we  have  seen. 

Much  has  been  said  of  the  singing  at  Mr.  Beecher's  Church, 
but  not  too  mucli.  Louder  congregational  singing  we  have  heard, 
as  at  the  Tabernacle  Sunday  night,  more  exquisite  music,  as  at 
Grace  Church  in  the  afternoon,  but  Plymouth  Church  has  the  best 
combination  of  organ  music,  choir-singing,  and  congregational 
singing,  we  have  ever  enjoyed.  It  was  a  delight  to  join  in  the 
songs.     How  stirring  and  evangelical  they  were  ! 

Nothing  was  so  perfectly  satisfactory  to  us  in  the  preacher's 
part  of  the  service  as  the  prayers.  We  could  say  amen,  all  the 
way  through,  and  every  time.  Simple,  direct,  comprehensive, 
reverent,  tender,  they  went  right  into  people's  hearts.  They  must 
surely  be  answered.  The  reading  of  the  Scripture  lessons  was  as 
if  one  were  reading  a  good  and  loving  letter  from  a  saintly  friend 
to  his  family.  What  mouthing  some  men  do  make  in  reading  the 
Scriptures  to  the  congregations  !  Twice  after  that  morning  ser- 
vice we  heard  wretched  reading.  Would  that  we  could  forget 
some  tones  we  heard  that  day.  Mr.  Beecher's  text  was  Gal. 
5  :  22,  23.  His  style  is  strong,  clear,  pointed,  suited  to  his 
thought,  and,  to  the  hearer's  eye  and  ear,  utterly  without  effort  or 


403  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 

pretence.  There  is  no  straining  after  effect  either  upon  himself  or 
his  congregation.  Ornaments  there  were  plenty,  if  illustrations, 
fresh  and  dewy,  and  perfectly  adapted  to  their  purpose,  are  to  be 
called  ornaments.  But  there  was  no  arranging  of  bouquets,  that 
the  flowers  might  be  admired.  His  figures  were  as  natural  as 
were  the  lovely  flowers  on  the  rostrum — fresh  that  morning  from 
some  conservatory — before  they  were  gathered.  There  was  phil- 
osophic order  in  the  sermon  without  a  technicality  ;  joints  where 
joints  ought  to  be,  but  well  concealed  and  as  noiseless  as  were  the 
hinges  of  the  broad  doors  that  opened  to  welcome  the  people. 
There  was  quick  intuition  without  mystical  vapors  ;  exegesis  with- 
out the  hint  of  it  in  terms,  application  without  a  reminder  to  the 
people  that  it  was  being  made.  Now  and  then  a  flash  of  genial, 
smile-evoking  humor,  without  a  taint  of  coarseness,  and  two  or 
three. times  a  glow  of  pathos  without  passion. 

As  to  his  manner  of  speaking,  we  wish  that  all  young  preachers 
could  hear  him,  not  to  imitate  him,  for  that  would  be  as  ridiculous 
as  vain — but  to  catch  a  hint  of  the  most  perfect  naturalness  we 
have  ever  seen  in  any  orator.  The  man  who  can  avoid  mere 
gaucheries  and  awkwardness  and  then  be  just  himself  in  posture, 
gesture,  tone,  and  emphasis  can  learn  this  lesson.  It  is  the  old 
lesson  of  David  putting  off  even  the  splendid  armor  of  a  king,  be- 
cause it  was  not  his  own  and  he  had  not  "  proved  it." 

Fairly  considered,  the  sermon  was  spiritual  and  evangelical.  If 
we  were  to  take  some  sentences  and  paragraphs  out  of  their  con- 
nection, they  would  be  considered  almost  heresies.  So  taken  they 
would  be  heresies.  Take  the  sermon  as  a  whole,  and  what  he  did 
not  say  that,  from  our  standpoint,  was  necessary  to  the  statement 
of  complete  truth,  was  implied.  This  question  occurred  to  us 
while  we  listened  with  charmed  ear  and  deeply  moved  heart. 
Does  this  great  congregation  bring  these  grand  half-truths  to- 
gether ?     It  is  to  be  hoped  they  did. 

Mr.  Beecher  and  his  congregation  have,  we  cannot  question,  so 


ANALYSES  OF  HIS  POWER,  AND  REMINISCENCES.      403 

acted  and  reacted  upon  eacli  other,  that  no  just  estimate  of  one 
can  be  formed  if  the  other  be  left  out. 

Nothing  is  more  natural  than  that  so  vigorous,  so  creative  a 
mind  as  Mr.  Beecher's,  acting  under  the  stimulus  of  the  mighty- 
tides  of  life  that  rise  and  fall  in  this  vast  double  city,  like  the  tides 
in  the  sea,  will  be  fresh  in  its  weekly  deliverances.  But  this 
fascinating  power — as  dangerous  to  the  preacher  as  to  his  hearers 
— must  pay  this  penalty  ;  there  is  a  constant  and  almost  resistless 
tendency  to  the  utterance  of  half-truths.  But  there  is  a  vast  dif- 
ference :  in  some  pulpits  half-truths  are  due  to  meagrcness,  in 
others  to  exuberance.  Mr.  Beecher's  half-truths  are  not  at  all  due 
to  meagreness — his  mind  is  as  full  of  growths  as  an  Amazonian 
forest.  But  in  such  a  forest  there  are  some  hurtful  growths. 
With  such  a  mind  the  tendency  is  to  push  statements  so  far  that 
the  truth  loses  its  full-orbed  symmetry  by  exaggeration.  We 
must  believe  that  some  sentences  in  the  sermon  we  heard,  remem- 
bered alone  and  out  of  their  connection,  were  harmful.  It  may 
be  they  were  not  so  remembered,  for  the  attention  of  the  great 
congregation  seemed  to  be  perfect.  If  there  was  any  difference 
the  choir  people  were  the  best  listeners — a  most  rare  circumstance. 
What  we  have  here  said  of  Mr.  Beecher  and  his  preaching  relates 
only  to  what  we  heard  from  him  on  this  one  occasion,  and  not  to 
what  we  have  been  hearing  of  him  for  more  than  twenty  years. 
More  and  more — we  have  learned  it  from  experience — we  hesitate 
to  form  opinions  from  what  we  hear  about  men. 

This  is  Tuesday  night  ;  perhaps  we  should  say  Wednesday 
morning,  and  our  feeling  is  this  :  We  want  to  hear  Mr.  Beecher 
preach  again. 


THE  MINISTER  PLENIPOTENTIAEY. 


By  O.  W.  HOLMES. 

(Prom  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  January,  1864.) 

Mr.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  went  to  Great  Britain  already 
well  known  at  home  as  the  favorite  preacher  of  a  large  parish,  an 
advocate  of  certain  leading  reforms,  one  of  the  most  popular 
lecturers  of  the  country,  a  bold,  outspoken,  fertile,  ready,  crowd- 
compelling  orator,  whose  reported  sermons  and  speeches  were 
fuller  of  catholic  humanity  than  of  theological  subtilties,  and 
whose  sympathies  were  of  that  lively  sort  which  are  apt  to  leap 
the  sectarian  fold  and  find  good  Christians  in  every  denomination. 
He  was  welcomed  by  friendly  persons  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  partly  for  these  merits,  partly  also  as  "  the  son  of  the 
celebrated  Dr.  Beecher,"  and  "  the  brother  of  Mrs.  Beecher 
Stowe." 

After  a  few  months'  absence  he  returns  to  America,  having  fin- 
ished a  more  remarkable  embassy  than  any  envoy  who  has  repre- 
sented us  in  Europe  since  Franklin  pleaded  the  cause  of  the  young 
Republic  at  the  Court  of  Versailles.  He  kissed  no  royal  hand,  he 
talked  with  no  courtly  diplomatists,  he  was  the  guest  of  no  titled 
legislator,  he  had  no  official  existence.  But  through  the  heart  of 
the  people  he  reached  nobles,  ministers,  courtiers,  the  throne  it- 
self.    .     .     . 

Mr.  Beecher's  European  story  is  a  short  one  in  time,  but  a  long 
one  in  events.     He  went  out  a  lamb,  a  tired  clergyman  in  need  of 


THE   MINISTER   PLENIPOTENTIARY.  405 

travel  ;  and  as  sucli  lie  did  not  strive,  nor  cry,  nor  did  any  man 
hear  his  voice  in  the  streets.  But  in  the  den  of  lions  where  his 
pathway  led  him,  he  remembered  his  own  lion's  nature,  and 
uttered  his  voice  to  such  effect  that  its  echoes,  in  the  great  vaulted 
caverns  of  London  and  Liverpool,  are  still  reaching  us,  as  the  sound 
of  the  woodman's  axe  is  heard  long  after  the  stroke  is  seen,  as  the 
light  of  the  star  shines  upon  us  many  days  after  its  departure  from 
the  source  of  radiance. 

Mr.  Beecher  made  a  single  speech  in  Great  Britain,  but  it  was 
delivered  piecemeal  in  different  places.  Its  exordium  was  uttered 
on  the  ninth  of  October  at  Manchester,  and  its  peroration  was  pro- 
nounced on  the  twentieth  of  the  same  month  in  Exeter  Hall. 

He  has  himself  furnished  us  an  analysis  of  the  train  of  repre- 
sentations and  arguments  of  which  this  protracted  and  many- 
jointed  oration  was  made  up.  At  Manchester  he  attempted  to 
give  a  history  of  that  series  of  political  movements,  extending 
through  half  a  century,  the  logical  and  inevitable  end  of  which 
was  open  conflict  between  the  two  opposing  forces  of  freedom  and 
slavery.  At  Glasgow  his  discourse  seems  to  have  been  almost  un- 
premeditated. A  meeting  of  one  or  two  temperance  advocates, 
who  had  come  to  greet  him  as  a  brother  in  their  cause,  took  on 
"  quite  accidentally  "  a  political  character,  and  Mr.  Beecher  grati- 
fied the  assembly  with  an  address  which  really  looked  as  if  it  had 
been  in  great  measure  called  forth  by  the  pressure  of  the  moment. 
It  seems  more  like  a  conversation  than  a  set  harangue. 

First,  he  very  good-humoredly  defines  his  position  on  the  tem- 
perance question  and  then  naturally  slides  into  some  self -revela- 
tions which  we  who  know  him  accept  as  the  simple  expression  of 
the  man's  character.  This  plain  speaking  made  him  at  home 
among  strangers  more  immediately,  perhaps,  than  anything  else  he 
could  have  told  them.  "  I  am  born  without  moral  fear.  I  have 
expressed  my  views  in  any  audience,  and  it  never  cost  me  a  strug- 
gle.    I  never  could  help  doing  it." 


406  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

The  way  a  man  handles  his  egoisms  is  a  test  of  his  mastery  over 
an  audience  or  a  class  of  readers.  What  we  want  to  know  about 
the  person  who  is  to  counsel  or  lead  us  is  just  what  he  is,  and 
nobody  can  tell  us  so  well  as  himself. 

Every  real  master  of  speaking  or  writing  uses  his  personality  as 
he  would  any  other  serviceable  material  ;  the  very  moment  a 
speaker  or  writer  begins  to  use  it,  not  for  his  main  purpose,  but 
for  vanity's  sake,  as  all  weak  people  are  sure  to  do,  hearers  and 
readers  feel  the  difference  in  a  moment.  Mr.  Beecher  is  a  strong, 
healthy  man,  in  mind  and  body.  His  nerves  have  never  been  cor- 
rugated with  alcohol  ;  his  thinking  marrow  is  not  brown  with 
tobacco-fumes  like  a  meerschaum,  as  are  the  brains  of  so  many 
unfortunate  Americans  ;  he  is  the  same  lusty,  warm-blooded, 
strong-fibred,  brave-hearted,  bright-souled,  clear-eyed  creature 
that  he  was  when  the  college  boys  at  Amherst  acknowledged  him 
as  the  chief  est  among  their  foot-ball  kickers. 

He  has  the  simple  frankness  of  a  man  who  feels  himself  to  be 
perfectly  sound,  in  bodily,  mental,  and  moral  structure  ;  and  his 
self-revelation  is  a  thousand  times  nobler  than  the  assumed  imper- 
sonality which  is  a  common  trick  with  cunning  speakers  who  never 
forget  their  own  interests.  Thus  it  is  that  wherever  Mr.  Beecher 
goes,  everybody  feels  after  he  .has  addressed  them  once  or  twice, 
that  they  know  him  well,  almost  as  if  they  had  always  known 
him  ;  and  there  is  not  a  man  in  the  land  who  has  such  a  multi- 
tude that  look  upon  him  as  if  he  were  their  brother. 

Having  magnetized  his  Glasgow  audience,  he  continued  the  sub- 
ject already  opened  at  Manchester  by  showing,  in  the  midst  of 
that  great  toiling  population,  the  deadly  influence  exerted  by 
slavery  in  bringing  labor  into  contempt,  and  its  ruinous  conse- 
quences to  the  free  workingman  everywhere. 

In  Edinburgh  he  explained  how  the  nation  grew  up  out  of  sepa- 
rate states,  each  jealous  of  its  special  sovereignty  ;  how  the  strug- 
gle for  the  control  of  the  united  nation,  after  leaving  it  for  a  long 


THE  MINISTER   PLENIPOTENTIARY.  407 

time  in  the  hands  of  the  South  to  be  used  in  favor  of  slavery,  at 
length  gave  it  into  those  of  the  North,  whose  influence  was  to  be 
for  freedom  ;  and  for  this  reason  the  South,  when  it  could  no 
longer  rule  the  nation,  rebelled  against  it.  In  Liverpool,  the 
centre  of  vast  commercial  and  manufacturing  interests,  he  showed 
how  those  interests  are  injured  by  slavery  ;  "  that  this  attempt  to 
cover  the  fairest  portion  of  the  earth  with  a  slave  population,  that 
buys  nothing,  and  a  degraded  white  population  that  buys  next  to 
nothing,  should  array  against  it  the  sympathy  of  every  true  politi- 
cal economist  and  every  thoughtful  and  far-seeing  manufacturer, 
as  tending  to  strike  at  the  vital  want  of  commerce,  not  the  want  of 
cotton,  but  the  want  of  customers." 

Ib  his  great  closing  effort  at  Exeter  Hall  in  London,  Mr. 
Beecher  began  by  disclaiming  the  honor  of  having  been  a  pioneer 
in  the  anti-slavery  movement,  which  he  found  in  progress  at  his 
entry  upon  public  life,  when  he  "  fell  into  the  ranks,  and  fought 
as  well  as  he  knew  how,  in  the  ranks  or  in  command."  He  un- 
folded before  his  audience  the  plan  and  connection  of  his  previous 
addresses,  showing  how  they  were  related  to  each  other  as  parts 
of  a  consecutive  series.  He  had  endeavored,  he  told  them,  to 
enlist  the  judgment,  the  conscience,  the  interests  of  the  British 
people  against  the  attempt  to  spread  slavery  over  the  continent, 
and  the  rebellion  it  has  kindled.  He  had  shown  that  slavery  was 
the  only  cause  of  the  war,  that  sympathy  with  the  South  was  only 
aiding  the  building  up  of  a  slave-empire,  that  the  North  was  con- 
tending for  its  own  existence  and  that  of  popular  institutions. 

Mr.  Beecher  then  asked  his  audience  to  look  at  the  question 
with  him  from  the  American  point  of  view.  He  showed  how  the 
conflict  began  as  a  moral  question  ;  the  sensitiveness  of  the  South  ; 
the  tenderness  for  them  on  the  part  of  many  Northern  apologizers, 
with  whom  he  himself  had  never  stood.  He  pointed  out  how  the 
question  gradually  emerged,  in  politics  ;  the  encroachments  of  the 
South,  until  they  reached  the  judiciary  itself  ;  he  repeated  to 
25 


408  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

them  the  admissions  of  Mr.  Stephens  as  to  the  preponderating  in- 
fluence the  South  had  all  along  held  in  the  Government.  An 
interruption  obliged  him  to  explain  that  adjustment  of  our  State 
and  National  Governments  which  Englishmen  seem  to  find  so  hard 
to  understand.  Nothing  shows  his  peculiar  powers  to  more  ad- 
vantage than  just  such  interruptions.  Then  he  displays  his  felici- 
tous facility  of  illustration,  his  familiar  way  of  bringing  a  great 
question  to  the  test  of  some  parallel  fact  that  everybody  before 
him  knows.  An  American  state  question  looks  as  mysterious  to 
an  English  audience  as  an  ear  of  Indian  corn  wrapped  in  its  sheath 
to  an  English  wheat-grower.  Mr,  Beecher  husks  it  for  them  as 
only  an  American  born  and  bred  can  do.  He  wants  a  few  sharp 
questions  to  rouse  his  quick  spirit. 

Having  cleared  up  this  matter  so  that  our  cousins  understood 
the  relations  of  the  dough  and  the  apple  in  our  national  dump- 
ling, to  borrow  one  of  their  royal  reminiscences — having  eulogized 
the  fidelity  of  the  North  to  the  national  compact,  he  referred  to 
the  action  of  "  that  most  true,  honest,  just,  and  conscientious 
magistrate,  Mr.  Lincoln" — at  the  mention  of  whose  name  the 
audience  cheered  as  long  and  loud  as  if  they  had  descended  from 
the  ancient  Ephesians. 

Mr.  Beecher  went  on  to  show  how  the  North  could  not  help 
fighting  when  it  was  attacked,  and  to  give  the  reasons  that  made 
it  necessary  to  fight,  reasons  which  none  but  a  consistent  Friend 
or  avowed  non-resistant  can  pretend  to  dispute.  His  ordinary 
style  in  speaking  is  pointed,  staccatoed,  as  is  that  of  most  success- 
ful extemporaneous  speakers  ;  he  is  "  short-gaited  ;"  the  move- 
ment of  his  thoughts  is  that  of  the  chopping  sea,  rather  than  the 
long,  rolling,  rhythmical  wave-procession  of  phrase-balancing 
rhetoricians.  But  when  the  lance  has  pricked  him  deep  enough, 
when  the  red  flag  has  flashed  in  his  face  often  enough, 
when  the  fireworks  have  hissed  and  sputtered  around  him  long 
enough,  when  the  cheers  have  warmed  him  so  that  all  his  life 


I 


THE   MINISTER   PLENIPOTENTIARY.  409 

is  roused,  then  his  intellectual  sparkle  becomes  a  steady  glow, 
and  his  nimble  sentences  change  their  form,  and  become  long- 
drawn,  stately  periods. 

"  Standing  by  my  cradle,  standing  by  my  hearth,  standing  by 
the  altar  of  the  church,  standing  by  all  the  places  that  mark  the 
name  and  memory  of  heroic  men  who  poured  their  blood  and  lives 
for  principle,  I  declare  that  in  ten  or  twenty  years  of  war  we  will 
sacrifice  everything  we  have  for  principle.  If  the  love  of  popular 
liberty  is  dead  in  Great  Britain,  you  will  not  understand  us  ;  but  if 
the  love  of  liberty  lives  as  it  once  lived,  and  has  worthy  succes- 
sors of  those  renowned  men  that  were  our  own  ancestors  as  much 
as  yours,  and  whose  example  and  principles  we  inherit  to  make 
fruitful  as  so  much  seed-corn  in  a  new  and  fertile  land,  then  you 
will  understand  our  firm,  invincible  determination — deep  as  the 
sea,  firm  as  the  mountains,  but  calm  as  the  heavens  above  us — to 
fight  this  war  through  at  all  hazards  and  at  every  cost." 

When  have  Englishmen  listened  to  nobler  words,  fuller  of  the 
true  soul  of  eloquence  ?  Never  surely  since  their  nation  entered 
the  abdominous  period  of  its  existence,  recognized  in  all  its  ideal 
portraits,  for  which  food  and  sleep  are  the  prime  conditions  of 
well-being.  Yet  the  old  instinct  which  has  made  the  name  of 
Englishman  glorious  in  the  past  was  there  in  the  audience  before 
him,  and  there  was  "  immense  cheering,"  relieved  by  some  slight 
colubrine  demonstrations. 

He  showed  the  monstrous  absurdity  of  England's  attacking  us 
for  fighting,  and  for  fighting  to  uphold  a  principle.  "  On  what 
shore  has  not  the  prow  of  your  ships  dashed  ?  What  land  is 
there  wuth  a  name  and  a  people  where  your  banner  has  not  led 
your  soldiers  ?  And  when  the  great  resurrection  reveille  shall 
sound,  it  will  muster  British  soldiers  from  every  clime  and  people 
under  the  whole  heaven.  .  .  .  He  explained  that  the  people 
who  sympathized  with  the  South  were  those  whose  voices  reached 
America,  while  the  friends  of  the  North  were  little  heard.     The 


410  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

first  had  bows  and  arrows  ;  the  second  have  shafts,  but  no  bows 
to  launch  them. 

"  How  about  the  Russians  ?"  Everybody  remembers  how 
neatly  Mr.  Beecher  caught  this  envenomed  dart,  and,  turning  it 
end  for  end,  drove  it  through  his  antagonist's  shield  of  triple 
bull's-hide.  "  Now  you  know  what  we  felt  when  you  were  flirt- 
ing with  Mr.  Mason  at  your  Lord  Mayor's  banquet."  A  cleaner 
and  straighter  "counter"  than  that,  if  we  may  change  the 
image  to  one  his  audience  would  apj^reciate  better,  is  hardly 
to  be  found  in  the  records  of  British  pugilism. 

The  orator  concluded  by  a  rather  sanguine  statement  of  his 
change  of  opinion  as  to  British  sentiment,  of  the  assurance  he 
should  carry  back  of  the  enthusiasm  for  the  cause  of  the  North, 
and  by  an  exhortation  to  unity  of  action  with  those  who  share 
their  .civilization  and  religion,  for  the  furtherance  of  the  gospel 
and  the  happiness  of  mankind.  The  audience  cheered  again, 
Professor  Newman  moved  a  vote  of  thanks,  and  the  meeting  dis- 
solved, wiser  and  better,  we  hope,  for  the  truths  which  had  been 
so  boldly  declared  before  them. 

What  is  the  net  result  so  far  as  we  can  see  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
voluntary  embassy  ?  So  far  as  he  is  concerned,  it  has  been  to  lift 
him  from  the  position  of  one  of  the  most  popular  preachers  and 
lecturers,  to  that  of  one  of  the  most  popular  men  in  the  country. 
Those  who  hate  his  philanthropy  admire  his  courage.  Those  who 
disagree  with  him  in  theology  recognize  him  as  having  a  claim  to 
the  title  of  apostle  quite  as  good  as  that  of  John  Eliot,  whom 
Christian  England  sent  to  heathen  America  two  centuries  ago,  and 
who  in  spite  of  the  singularly  stupid  questionings  of  the  natives, 
and  the  violent  opposition  of  the  sachems  and  powwows,  or 
priests,  succeeded  in  reclaiming  large  numbers  of  the  copper- 
colored  aborigines. 

We  are  living  in  a  period  not  of  events  only,  but  of  epochs. 
We  are  in  the  transition  stage  from  the  miocene  to  the  pliocene 


MR.  BEEUHER  COMPARED  WITH  OTHERS.     411 

period  of  human  existence.  A  new  heaven  is  forming  over  our 
head  behind  the  curtain  of  clouds  which  rises  from  our  smoking 
battle-fields.  A  new  earth  is  shaping  itself  under  our  feet  amid 
the  tremors  and  convulsions  that  agitate  the  soil  upon  which  we 
tread.  But  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  surprise  in  the  order  of 
nature.  The  kingdom  of  God  even,  cometh  not  with  observation. 
The  fruit  of  Mr.  Beecher's  visit  will  ripen  in  due  time,  not  only 
in  direct  results,  but  in  opening  the  way  to  future  moral  embassies, 
going  forth  unheralded,  unsanctioned  by  state  documents,  in  the 
simple  strength  of  Christian  manhood  on  their  errands  of  truth 
and  peace. 


By   H.    R.    HAWEIS. 

{From  the  Contemporary  Review,  Vol.  XIX.,  1872.) 

It  would  be  no  compliment  to  call  Henry  Ward  Beecher  the 
American  Spurgeon.  He  may  be  that,  but  he  is  more.  If  we 
can  imagine  Mr.  Spurgeon  and  Mr.  John  Bright  with  a  cautious 
touch  of  Mr.  Maurice  and  a  strong  tincture  of  the  late  F.  W.  Rob- 
ertson— if,  I  say,  it  is  possible  to  imagine  such  a  compound  being 
brought  up  in  New  England,  and  at  last  securely  fixed  in  a  New  York 
pulpit,  we  shall  get  a  product  not  unlike  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

Mr.  Beecher  is  quite  as  remarkable  for  what  he  lacks  as  for 
what  he  possesses.  With  the  exception  of  a  strong  and  energetic 
personality  which  is  highly  original,  he  is  almost  without  origi- 
nality. He  has  no  mental  monomania,  no  idiosyncrasy,  no  new 
*'  doctrine,"  no  new  "  tongue,"  no  new  "  revelation  ;"  and  it  is 
altogether  remarkable  that  the  two  most  prominent  preachers  in 
England  and  America  respectively  should  be  alike  in  this,  that 
they  have  added  nothing  to  the  fertile  field  of  theological  d(  gma- 
tism.      Perhaps  we  ought  to  be  thankful  for  the  omission — it  may 

r ~~'" 


412  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

dawning  upon  a  world  "  weary  of  the  heat  and  dust  of  contro- 
versy."    .... 

The  days  of  stilted  preaching  are  over.  If  a  man  has  got  any- 
thing to  say  people  are,  and  always  will  be,  glad  to  hear  him  ;  but 
if  he  has  nothing  to  say  let  him  hold  his  peace.  Never  was  there 
a  greater  impatience  with  mere  rhetoric  than  in  these  latter  days. 
People  may  say  that  whole  speeches  of  Mr.  Gladstone  are  mere 
rhetoric,  but  what  seems  only  rhetoric  to  persons  out  of  sympathy 
with  the  Premier  (1  S7l)  is  not  rhetoric  to  him  or  to  those  who  un- 
derstand him,  it  is  merely  the  expression  of  a  power  to  will  and  to 
do.  When  a  man's  words  are  understood  to  mean  this  he  will  be 
listened  to  in  the  Senate  or  in  the  pulpit,  and  he  will  have  the  priv- 
ilege of  conveying  his  meaning  in  any  way  he  pleases.  Mr.  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  fully  avails  himself  of  this  privilege.  Nothing  comes 
amiss  to  him.  As  for  the  dignity  of  the  pulpit,  he  knows  of  no  dig- 
nity save  the  dignity  of  doing  good,  of  winning  men  by  all  means, 
of  talking  common-sense  in  the  most  forcible  manner  possible. 

Like  almost  every  great  preacher,  Mr.  Beecher  is  a  real  humor- 
ist ;  his  satire  burns,  but  it  does  not  harden  ;  he  will  laugh  men 
out  of  their  sins  if  he  cannot  otherwise  persuade  them,  and  he  will 
show  how  very  ridiculous  an  action  may  be,  when  he  feels  that  no 
other  kind  of  denunciation  is  likely  to  affect  his  hearers.  There  is 
one  very  amiable  and  singular  trait  about  his  teaching.  It  is  the 
justice  usually  done  to  his  opponents.  He  will  show  what  he  thinks 
good  in  them  ;  he  will  state  their  case  for  them,  perhaps  better 
than  they  could  state  it  for  themselves,  and  when  the  point  of  an- 
tagonism is  reached,  instead  of  scolding  them  with  polemical  invec- 
tive, he  will  hold  not  them  but  their  erroneous  opinions  up  to  the 
mildest,  most  good-natured,  but  most  irresistible  ridicule.     .     .     . 

But  it  is  now  time  to  turn  from  general  characteristics  to  the 
subject-matter  itself  of  Mr.  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  preaching 
which  we  venture  to  say  will  bear  a  little  close  attention.  His 
fertility  and  freshness  are  alike  remarkable. 


SOLID  COMMON-SENSE.  413 

"  I  asked,"  says  a  casual  attendant  at  Mr.  Beecher's  church, 
"  -I  asked  a  gentleman  who  sat  behind  me  whether  he  was  a  regu- 
lar attendant,  and  if  so  whether  he  remarked  any  difference  in  the 
quality  of  the  sermons  or  any  repetition.  He  said,  '  I  have  sat 
here  five  years  and  I  never  heard  any  man  repeat  himself  so  little. 
I  have  heard  other  celebrated  preachers,  and  have  heard  no  one 
equal  to  him  ;  as  for  the  sermon  to-day  it  was  not  better  or  worse 
than  his  discourses  in  general.  It  was  an  average  sermon.'  " 
And  this  is  quite  the  impression  left  on  the  reader  who  chooses  to 
study — we  will  not  say  wade  through,  for  it  is  more  light  reading 
than  wading — the  six  volumes  before  us. 

A  man  who  undertakes  to  treat  the  whole  of  human  life  from 
the  moral  stand-point  has  set  himself  no  easy  task.  He  who 
would  do  justice  to  all  the  various  theological  tendencies  of  his 
own  age  has  entered  upon  a  field  of  difficult  and  perilous  action, 
from  which  he  can  scarcely  expect  to  issue  perfectly  unscathed. 
And  yet  it  is  astonishing  how  on  the  whole,  Mr.  Beecher  manages 
to  justify  his  own  description  of  himself  as  reasonably  orthodox. 
The  late  Mr.  F.  W.  Robertson  managed  to  draw  the  teeth  of  many 
an  offensive  dogma,  by  attaching  a  highly  spiritual  meaning  to  the 
doctrinal  letter.  This  is  not  always  Mr.  Beecher's  method,  but 
the  most  exasperating  shibboleths  become  harmless  in  his  hands, 
owing  to  his  singular  faculty  of  seeing  a  common-sense  side  to 
every  question  ;  in  short,  his  Gospel  is  emphatically  the  Gospel  of 
Common-Sense.  In  his  highest  flights  of  thought,  in  his  deepest 
expressions  of  religious  feeling,  he  never  loses  a  certain  solid 
sobriety.  To  combine  this  with  an  impetuous  temperament  and 
a  burning  enthusiasm,  such  as  he  undoubtedly  possesses,  is  a  rare 
if  not  an  original  gift.  How  well  Mr.  Beecher  employs  thought 
and  passion,  common-sense  and  a  quite  mystical  religious  fervor, 
perhaps  they  only  can  quite  estimate  who,  to  use  a  slang  expres- 
sion, "  sit  under  him." 


414  )  HENRY   WARD   BEEGHER. 

By  REV.    W.    M.    TAYLOR,    D.D.* 

(From  the  Scottish  Review,  October,  1859.) 

In  Boston  tlie  liuman  race  is  divided  into  ' '  the  Good,  the  Bad, 
and  the  Beechers,"  and  very  quaintly  does  this  division  indicate 
that  the  Beecher  family  is  distinguished  from  every  other  by  cer- 
tain characteristic  traits  which  yet  defy  all  attempts  at  ordinary 
classification. 

Their  greatest  enemies  cannot  pronounce  them  to  be  positively 
bad,  and  their  most  enthusiastic  admirers  cannot  declare  that  they 
are  perfectly  good  ;  therefore,  by  common  consent,  they  have 
been  put  into  a  category  by  themselves.  Now,  that  this  should 
be  the  case,  argues  the  possession  of  great  mental  ability  as  well 
as  singularity,  by  the  members  of  this  famous  family.  They  have 
made  tTiemselves  felt  and  known  as  something  different  from  the 
common  run  of  mortals  ;  they  have  grafted  a  new  branch  on  to 
the  tree  of  intellect,  so  that  in  New  England  it  is  suflScient  to 
insure  for  a  man  a  reputation  for  mental  vigor,  if  he  only  be  "  a 
Beecher."  And  yet  this  family  reputation  is  not  of  an  entirely 
unmixed  character,  for  the  proverb  to  which  we  have  referred 
places  them  between  the  good  and  the  bad,  as  having  certain 
peculiarities  which  would  connect  them  with  both.  Nat,  indeed, 
that  there  is  anything  morally  questionable  about  them,  or  that 
there  is  any  want  of  decision  in  themselves,  for  the  reverse  of  this 
is  notoriously  the  case,  but  rather  that  their  great  excellencies 
cast,  perhaps  from  their  very  greatness,  certain  deep  and  dark 
shadows,  which,  in  the  estimation  of  multitudes,  are  very  grave 
defects.  In  a  word,  the  Beechers  are  reputed  a  "  peculiar  peo- 
ple," whose  excellencies  by  some  are  accounted  defects,  whose  de- 

*  The  parts  omitted  from  this  article,  indicated  by  the  asterisks,  are 
those  which  have  been  quoted  iu  the  body  of  the  book. 


BEECHER   STANDS   UNRIVALLED.  415 

fects  by  others  are  accounted  excellencies,  but  who,  as  it  respects 
both  of  these,  are  by  all  acknowledged  to  be  different  from  others. 
Now,  if  we  were  required  to  define  the  position,  as  a  preacher, 
occupied  by  him  whose  name  stands  at  the  head  of  this  article, 
we  could  not  doit  better  than  by  dividing  pulpit  orators  into  "  the 
Good,  the  Bad,  and  Beecher. "  He  stands  decidedly  by  himself  ; 
he  cannot  be  classified  ;  he  is  in  fact  a  class  by  himself  ;  he  is 
Beecher,  and  that  is  the  most  expressive  description  that  can  be 
given  of  him.  But  admitting  that  he  stands  alone,  the  sole  rep- 
resentative of  his  school,  the  question  presents  itself,  What  is  the 
character  of  that  school  ?  To  this  question,  alike  in  his  native 
country  and  our  own,  very  different  answers  have  been  given. 
Some  have  said  he  is  trashy,  flashy,  and  ridiculous  ;  and  others 
have  maintained  that  he  is  marked  by  silly  affectation  and  high- 
sounding  pretentiousness  ;  but  since  the  publication  of  these  twin 
series  of  "  Life  Thoughts,"  we  greatly  mistake  if  the  general  im- 
pression do  not  now  become  that  he  is  one  of  the  most  earnest,  sim- 
ple-minded, natural,  impassioned,  and  many-gifted  men  this  age 
has  seen.  He  has  things  about  him,  which,  like  dead  flies,  may 
seem  to  mar  the  precious  ointment,  but  it  is  precious  for  all  that  ; 
and  though  his  occasional  sallies  of  wit,  or  his  strong,  coarse, 
unrelenting  denunciation  of  all  oppressions  and  shams,  or  his  un- 
disguised and  not  over-nicely  expressed  contempt  for  cant,  may 
appear  to  identify  him  with  the  low  and  vulgar,  yet  his  genuine 
sympathy  with  the  down-trodden  and  neglected,  his  love  of  the 
beautiful  in  nature  and  art,  his  "  poet's  eye  in  a  fine  frenzy  roll- 
ing," his  child-like  simplicity  and  guilelessness,  his  moral  courage 
in  the  vindication  of  right  against  might,  and  his  attachment  to 
the  simple  gospel  of  the  blessed  God,  ally  him  to  the  good  and 
true  of  every  age,  and  place  him  in  the  fore-front  of  his  own. 
Indeed,  this  is  already  beginning  to  be  admitted  in  America,  as  a 
thing  conclusively  established.  When  first  he  appeared  in  Brook- 
lyn, and  crowds  thronged  around  him,  men  shook  their  heads  and 


416  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

said,  "  It's  only  novelty,  it  will  soon  cease  ;"  but  now  for  nearly 
twelve  years  *  it  has  continued,  nay  increased,  and  people  feel  there 
must  be  something  in  it.  When  the  annual  sale  of  pews  has 
reached  $25,000  ;  when,  Sabbath  after  Sabbath,  boat-loads  of 
people  cross  from  New  York  to  enjoy  his  ministrations  ;  when 
merchants  from  the  Far  West  have  it  entered  in  their  note-books 
when  they  come  to  the  metropolis,  "  Mem.  to  hear  Beecher  ;" 
when  even  individuals  from  the  Southern  States,  with  all  their 
deep-rooted  prejudices  against  the  anti-slavery  advocate,  have  been 
so  won  over  by  his  preaching  as  to  seek  an  introduction  to  him- 
self ;  there  must,  we  repeat,  be  something  in  it  ;  and  when  we 
look  into  these  "  Life  Thoughts,"  fragmentary  though  they  be, 
we  are  at  no  loss  to  discover  what  that  something  is.  The  man 
from  whose  pulpit  such  precious  jewels  so  constantly  fall  cannot 
be  other  than  a  man  of  genius,  and  if  their  setting  be  at 
all  in  keeping  with  their  own  intrinsic  beauty,  he  has  a  right 
to  the  highest  degree  of  popularity.  It  were  easy  to  substan- 
tiate this  by  endless  quotations  from  the  books  referred  to, 
but  as  they  must  be  already  in  the  hands  of  all  our  readers, 
we  prefer  to  gather  up  from  them  and  other  sources  the  various 
characteristics  by  which  Henry  Ward  Beecher  is  distinguished,  and 
thus  bring  into  a  clearer  light  the  true  position  and  mission  of  this 
remarkable  man. 

It  may  serve,  however,  to  gratify  a  laudable  curiosity,  as  well  as 
to  illustrate  the  proverbial  allusion  with  which  we  commenced,  if, 
before  going  farther,  we  briefly  enumerate  a  few  biographical  de- 
tails. Mr.  Beecher  was  born  at  Litchfield,  Connecticut,  on  the 
24th  of  June,  1813  ;  his  father,  the  well-known  Dr.  Lyman 
Beecher,  who  occupies  a  high  place  among  the  theologians  of 
America,  was  at  that  time  a  minister  of  the  gospel  there,  but  was 
afterward  appointed  to  a  tutorship  in  the  Lane  Seminary,  Cincin- 

*  Now  about  thirty-five  years. 


HIS   TEMPERANCE   PRINCIPLES.  417 

nati,  at  wliich,  after  graduating  at  Amherst  College,  his  son 
Henry  studied.  The  family  were  originally,  on  the  father's  side, 
from  Kent,  and  on  the  mother's  side  from  Wales,  so  that,  as  an 
American  critic  says,  "  the  blood  of  the  Beechers  received  a  happy 
mixture  of  Welsh  blood,  with  its  poetry  and  music,  and  its  insatia- 
ble love  of  genealogy, ' ' 

Mr.  Beecher  is  one  of  thirteen  children,  the  great  majority  of 
whom  are  now  living.  Ilis  mother,  who  is  described  as  a  womf:n 
of  rare  endowments,  fine  taste,  acute  intellect,  and  delicate  appre- 
ciation of  the  beautiful  alike  in  art  and  nature,  died  when  he  was 
little  more  than  a  babe.  Her  calm,  poetical,  Madame  Guion-like 
character  impressed  every  one  who  came  under  her  influence,  and 
though  our  author  was  too  young  fully  to  comprehend  its  nature, 
he  was  yet  old  enough  to  be  considerably  moulded  by  its  power. 
Frequently  does  he  refer  to  her  in  his  discourses,  and  if,  in  the 
strength  of  his  intellect,  one  may  read  a  likeness  to  his  father, 
from  his  mother  he  inherits  those  finer  affinities  with  the  beautiful 
and  imaginative  by  w^hich  he  is  distinguished.  The  other  mem- 
bers of  the  family  are  all  more  or  less  eminent  in  literature  or 
theology.  AVe  may  only  mention  Miss  Catherine  E.  Beecher,  Dr. 
Edward  Beecher,  author  of  the  "  Conflict  of  Ages,"  and  Mrs. 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  the  gifted  authoress  of  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin."  Thus,  in  the  case  of  the  Beechers,  as  in  that  of  the 
Gregories,  the  Abercrombies,  the  Browns,  and  others  among  our- 
selves, intellect  and  authorship  seem  to  run  in  the  blood,  and  are 
looked  for  as  things  of  course.  This  appears  to  be  true  also  of 
Mr.  Beecher' s  temperance  principles.  Every  one  has  heard  of 
those  six  sermons  on  intemperance,  to  which  our  old  friend  James 
Stirling  owed  so  much  ;  but  it  may  not  be  so  generally  known 
that  the  person  from  whom  he  takes  his  name,  Henry  Ward,  his 
mother's  father,  honorably  distinguished  himself,  when  an  officer 
in  the  French  and  Indian  war,  at  the  capture  of  Louisburg,  by 
refusing  to  receive  the  usual  rum  rations.     He  obtained  money 


418  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

instead  and  had  it  made  into  spoons,  which  were  marked  ' '  Louis- 
burg,"  and  are  still  preserved  in  the  family. 

Mr.  Beecher  commenced  his  labors  in  the  ministry  in  1837,  as 
the  pastor  of  a  Presbyterian  church  at  Lawrenceburgh,  Dearborn 
County,  Indiana.  He  remained  here  two  years,  and  then  removed 
to  Indianapolis,  the  capital  of  the  State,  where  he  continued  until 
he  accepted  the  invitation  of  the  new  Congregational  Church  in 
Brooklyn,  New  York,  over  which  he  was  installed  in  October, 
1847.  He  is  now  in  his  44th  year  ;  but  is  described  as  much 
younger  in  his  appearance,  and  possessed  of  great  physical  strength 
and  liv6liness.  His  face  at  first  sight  is  not  very  attractive  ;  but 
it  is  exceedingly  susceptible  of  impression  from  within,  and  you 
may  mark  thought  after  thought  passing  over  it  almost  as  dis- 
tinctly as  you  perceive  the  shadow  and  the  sunshine  chasing  each 
other  across  the  field.  The  chief  feature  of  his  countenance  is  his 
large,  full,  blue  eye,  which,  while  at  rest,  has  a  dreamy  look,  but 
when  he  is  excited  flashes  out  with  that  true  lightning  that  ever 
accompanies  the  thunder  roll  of  eloquence.  The  first  look  at  him 
will  be  sure  to  disappoint  ;  but  if  we  will  only  have  patience  and 
wait  until  the  impassioned  inspiration  comes,  all  possible  descrip- 
tion will  be  far  exceeded.  As  he  enters  the  pulpit,  or  rather  as  he 
mounts  the  platform,  for  he  has  no  pulpit,  he  might  almost  be 
mistaken  for  a  butcher  in  his  Sunday  clothes  ;  but  let  him  get  into 
his  subject,  and  anon,  as  some  beautiful  and  feeling  utterance 
comes  welling  up  from  the  fountain  of  his  soul,  his  face  begins  to 
shine  as  if  it  were  an  angel's  ;  or  as  he  pours  out  the  vials  of  his 
indignation  on  some  flagrant  wrong,  the  darkness  of  the  storm 
gathers  on  his  brow  and  the  sternness  of  passion  sits  upon 
his  lips.  His  forehead  is  high  rather  than  broad  ;  his  cheeks 
bare  ;  his  mouth  compressed  and  firm,  with  humor  lurking  and 
almost  laughing  in  the  corners  ;  his  collar  turned  over  a  la 
Byron,  more  perhaps  for  the  comfort  of  his  ears  (as  he  is  exceed- 
ingly short-necked)  than  for  any  love  for  that  peculiar  fashion. 


FEATURES  OF  HIS   MINISTRY.  419 

His  voice  is  full   of  music,  in  which,  by  the  way,  he  is  a  great 
proficient. 

His  body  is  well  developed,  and  his  great  maxim  is  to  keep  it 
in  first-rate  working  order,  for  he  considers  health  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian duty,  and  rightly  deems  it  impossible  for  any  man  to  do  jus- 
tice to  his  mental  faculties  without  at  the  same  time  attending  to 
his  physical.  His  motions  are  quick  and  elastic,  and  his  manners 
frank,  cordial,  and  kind,  such  as  to  attract  rather  than  to  repel  the 
advances  of  others.  With  children  he  is  an  especial  favorite  ;  they 
love  to  run  up  to  him  and  offer  him  little  bundles  of  flowers,  of 
which  they  know  him  to  be  passionately  fond,  and  they  deem 
themselves  more  than  rewarded  by  the  hearty  "  Thank  you," 
and  the  tender  look  of  loving  interest  that  accompanies  liis  accept- 
ance of  their  gift.  Add  to  this  that  his  benevolence  is  limited 
only  by  his  means,  and  our  readers  will  have  a  pretty  good  idea  of 
his  general  character  and  personal  appearance. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  * 

But  another  great  feature  of  his  public  ministry  is  to  be  found 
in  the  importance  and  value  which  he  uniformly  attaches  to  man. 
He  sees  nothing  in  the  world  that  can  at  all  be  compared  in  value 
to  the  human  soul  ;  and  he  places  man  above  all  God's  works.  He 
believes,  indeed,  in  the  doctrine  of  depravity,  but,  as  himself 
once  expressed  it,  "  he  would  not  make  his  nest  on  it  ;"  that  is  to 
say,  it  is  not  with  him  the  most  important  and  central  truth.  It 
is  not  the  key-note  of  his  preaching  ;  the  love  of  God  in  Christ, 
and  not  the  sin  of  man  strikes  that,  and  he  sings  a  major,  not  a 
minor  tune. 

He  lets  others  tell  of  the  depths  into  which  man  has  fallen,  hh 
theme  is  ever  one  of  hope  and  restoration.  He  believes  that  man, 
depraved  though  he  be,  has  a  value  that  is  not  possessed  by  other 
created  beings,  angels  alone  excepted.  He  weighs  him  in  the  bal- 
ance of  the  Cross,  and  reckons  that  the  ransom  which  was  paid  on 
it  alone  can  tell  the  worth  of  that  which  was  redeemed.     He  looks 


420  HENRY"   WARD   BEECHER. 

thus  at  the  great  fact  of  the  atonement  from  the  human  side  of  it, 
as  showing  that  men  are  "  unspeakably  precious,  and  vahiable  be- 
yond all  computation."  To  man,  therefore,  everything  else  on 
earth  must  be  suhordinated,  and  whatsoever  tends  to  injure,  or 
oppress,  or  demoralize  him,  he  holds  to  be  not  only  injustice  to 
him,  but  also,  and  far  worse,  a  wounding  of  God  where  his  heart 
is  most  tender  and  his  sympathies  are  most  acute  ;  it  is,  in  fact, 
an  undervaluing  of  that  which  God  accounted  worth  the  blood  of 
His  incarnate  Son.  Hence  his  deep-rooted  abhorrence  of  slavery 
springs  not  more  from  his  love  to  man  than  from  his  reverence  for 
God,  and  to  this  source  also  must  be  traced  that  intense  public 
spirit  which  he  manifests,  and  which  leads  him  to  take  part  in  all 
the  important  movements  of  his  country  and  of  his  times.  There 
must,  indeed,  to  one  of  his  temperament,  be  much  that  is  alluring 
in  the  mere  excitement  which  is  connected  with  such  struggles  for 
justice,  and  truth,  and  righteousness  as  those  in  which  he  has 
engaged,  but  he  has  entered  into  them  mainly  because  he  felt  that 
to  refuse  to  do  so  would  be  to  stand  by  and  see  dishonored  that 
human  nature  which  God's  Son  assumed,  and  which  he  came  at 
once  to  dignify  and  redeem.  His  benevolence  thus  has  sprung 
like  the  fabled  flower  of  old  from  blood,  and  its  root  is  at  the 
Cross,  for  he  reasons  thus — if  man  was  worth  the  blood  of  Christ, 
then  he  is  immensely  more  valuable  than  any  earthly  thing,  and 
every  custom,  law,  or  institution  that  degrades  him  thrusts  an- 
other spear  into  the  side  of  Jesus. 

These  two  principles,  to  wit,  the  power  and  life  of  religion,  and 
the  importance  of  man,  run  through  all  his  discourses,  and  give  a 
form  and  color  to  everything  he  does.  They  mark  his  ministry  as 
a  whole,  and  distinguish  it  from  other  men's,  but  in  his  assertion 
and  treatment  of  them,  many  peculiarities  appear  which  demand  a 
passing  notice.  Foremost  among  these  we  place  his  originality. 
He  has  left  almost  entirely  the  beaten  track  of  preachers,  and 
pursues  a  pathway  of  his  own.     In  the  study  of  the  word  of  God 


BEECHER'S  ORIGINALITY.  421 

he  discards,  someM'hat  unceremoniously,   the  help  of  critics  and 
commentators  ;  he  has,  in  fact,  no  sympathy  with  exegesis,  and 
very  probably  no  great  ability  to  engage  in  it.     We  do  not  think 
he  troubles  himself  much  about  the  original,  or  seeks  often  to 
amend  the  authorized  version  of  King  James.     He  complains,  as 
we   think    somewhat    unjustly,    that    commentators    have    "he- 
trashed"  the  Bible,  and  that  "coming  to  it  through  comment- 
aries is  much  like  looking  at  a  landscape  through  garret  windows, 
over  which  generations  of  unmolested  spiders  have   spun  their 
webs."     Such  an  assertion,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  too  sweeping 
and  indiscriminate,  yet  the  feeling  from  which  it  has  sprung  has 
contributed  freshness  and  originality  to  his  discourses.     He  never 
reads  commentaries,  and  when  one  comes  unexpectedly  across  his 
path,  he  says  to  it  as  Diogenes  to  Alexander,  "  Stand  out  of  my 
light  ;"  hence  if  he  says  anything  at  all  upon  a  passage  it  is  sure 
to  be  his  own.     This  may  be  very  safe  for  him,  with  his  exuberant 
abundance  of  material  gathered  from  observation  and  experience, 
but  we  may  warn  all  young  preachers  from  attempting  to  imitate  it, 
for,  in  ordinary  circumstances,  such  a  course  would  result  in  poverty 
rather  than  originality.     It  is  not  every  man  who  can  bend  the 
bow  of  Ulysses  ;  and  for  common  individuals  to  neglect  the  labors 
of  our  sacred  critics  would  be  great  presumption  and  certain  de- 
struction.    We  welcome  Mr.  Beecher's  freshness  in  this  respect, 
even  though  we  disapprove  of  that  which  in  a  good  degree  has 
contributed  to  produce  it  ;  but  we  have  no  patience  with  those 
who  sneer  at  criticism  and  the  study  of  commentaries,  while  yet 
they  have  nothing  of  their  own  to  give  instead.     Mr.  Beecher's 
own  individuality  is  his  richest  commentary  ;  and  the  coin  which 
issues  from  his  mint  is  stamped  with  his  own  image  and  superscrip- 
tion.    The  truth  comes  to  his  hearers  through  himself,  that  is, 
through  the  medium  of  his  voice,  but  shaded  and  stamped  by  his 
own  heart-history  and  experience  ;  and  if  we  have  not  rigid  expo- 
sition, we  have  what  perhaps  is  better,  the  self-revelation  of  a 


432  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

gifted  and  remarkable  man.  The  same  peculiarity  marks  his 
treatment  of  men  which  distinguishes  his  study  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  he  addresses  himself  to  the  idiosyncrasies  of  his  hearers.  He 
believes  that  every  man's  soul  is  open  at  one  door  to  the  truth, 
and  he  makes  it  his  business  to  find  that  out,  and  enter  in  thereby. 
What  is  usually  called  **  gospel-hardened  "  he  believes  to  be 
practically,  in  most  cases,  only  word-hardened,  and  as  a  conse- 
quence he  sets  himself  to  devise  modes  of  expression,  and  to  pre- 
sent phases  of  the  truth  to  which  men  have  not  become  accus- 
tomed. He  excels,  too,  in  the  delineation  of  character.  His 
life-pictures  are  most  remarkable  ;  to  use  a  somewhat  hackneyed 
bat  expressive  quotation,  ''he  holds  the  mirror  up  to  nature," 
and  lets  his  hearers  see  themselves.  His  sermons  thus  are  not 
mere  firings  into  the  air,  like  the  "  feu  de  joie  "  of  a  gala-day  ; 
he  is  too  good  a  marksman  to  be  content  with  "  drawing  a  bow  at 
a  venture,"  but  he  always  contrives  to  have  an  aim,  and  takes  care 
to  hit  in  the  white.  Those  who  know  him  best  say  that  he  studies 
his  sermons  in  the  shops  and  stores,  in  the  streets  and  in  the 
ferry-boats  ;  and  we  believe  it,  for  they  are  like  the  productions 
of  a  man  who  has  gone  through  the  city  with  his  eyes  open. 
They  seem  to  have  been  struck  out  of  him,  if  we  may  use  such  an 
expression,  by  the  sights  he  sees  and  the  sounds  he  hears  in  the 
midst  of  that  whirling  tide  of  human  life  that  "  bubbles,  and 
seethes,  and  hisses,  and  roars"  around  him,  and  his  purpose  by 
them  is  to  descend  into  its  depths,  and  bring  up  thence  the  souls 
of  struggling  men,  to  him  more  precious  far  than  the  silver  cup  or 

glittering  pearl  in  the  diver's  eye. 

******* 

This  almost  unrivalled  power  of  illustration  is  greatly  aided  by 
his  ardent  love  of  nature,  which  amounts  with  him  almost  to  a 
passion.  We  know  few  men  whose  communings  with  the  exter- 
nal world  approach  so  nearly  to  those  described  by  Wordsworth, 
when  he  speaks  of  one  desiring  to  be  absorbed  into  the  scene,  and 


MR.   BEECHER'S   LOVE   OF   NATURE.  423 

to  become  ''  a  presence  or  a  motion."  Every  tree,  and  flower, 
and  rock,  and  stream  has  a  language  and  a  greeting  for  him,  and 
be  looks  upon  them  all  as  friends.  The  notes  of  birds,  the  sounds 
of  ocean,  the  sighing  of  the  forest,  and  the  roar  of  the  waterfall, 
are  all  familiar  to  him,  and  each  has  in  his  ear  a  spiritual  meaning 
of  its  own.  Hence,  no  "  clerical  furlough  "  can  be  better  enjoyed 
than  his  annual  holiday,  and  none  better  improved.  This  appears 
in  his  "  Star  Papers,"  and  also  to  a  large  extent  in  these  "  Life 
Thoughts."  He  is  indeed  a  perfect  child  of  nature's  own,  and 
when  he  withdraws  from  the  city  to  the  seclusion  of  the  country, 
his  delight  is  unbounded.  It  is  thus  he  has  succeeded  so  well  in 
preserving  the  freshness  and  juvenility  of  his  mind,  for  the  expe- 
riences and  feelings  of  his  boyhood  come  again  as  he  pursues  his 
boyhood's  sports.  At  such  times  his  soul  is  at  spring,  tide,  and 
all  remaining  traces  of  a  lower  level  are  swept  up  with  it.  In  this 
way,  he  has  secured  what  Coleridge  calls  "  the  moral  accompani- 
ment and  actuating  power  of  genius,"  namely,  "  the  carrying  of 
the  freshness  and  feelings  of  childhood  into  the  powers  of  man- 
hood." 

But  we  must  pass  on  to  speak  of  Mr.  Beecher's  humor,  without 
some  mention  of  which  any  sketch  of  him  would  be  signally  incom- 
plete. This  power  is  possessed  by  him  in  large  measure,  and  like 
everything  else  about  him,  it  is  perfectly  natural.  He  never  goes 
out  of  his  way  to  say  a  funny  thing,  nor  does  he  ever  say  it  merely 
for  fun's  sake,  for  it  is  with  him  a  power  more  telling  than  the 
artillery  of  logic.  We  grant,  indeed,  that  ridicule  is  not  always  a 
right  test  of  truth,  and  we  are  disposed  to  admit  that,  in  ordinary 
circumstances,  the  pulpit  is  not  the  place  for  the  display  of 
humor  ;  yet  there  are  some  arguments  which  can  only  be  met  by  a 
reductio  ad  absurdum,  and  it  does  strike  us  as  somewhat  strange 
that  the  preachers  who,  like  Rowland  Hill,  Berridge,  Spurgeon, 
and  many  others  have  given  loose  rein  to  their  wit,  have  been 
among  the  most  eminently  successful  in  their  ministry.  Whether 
26 


424  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

this  may  be  in  consequence  of  their  wit  or  in  spite  of  it  we  are 
not  prepared  to  say — we  simply  indicate  the  fact  ;  but  we  fear- 
lessly express  our  conviction,  that  a  witty  something,  even  in  the 
pulpit,  is  by  no  means  so  sinful  as  a  witless  nothing,  however 
solemn  it  may  sound.  Mr.  Beecher's  humor  is  always  expressive, 
but  it  sometimes  borders  on  the  coarse,  and  in  this,  perhaps,  more 
than  in  anything  else,  one  feels  disposed  to  question  the  fineness 
of  his  taste  ;  but,  then,  much  allowance  must  be  made  for  a  man 
of  his  natural  temperament  and  rollicking  disposition.  He  says 
many  of  these  things,  we  believe,  before  he  is  aware  that  anything 
out  of  place  has  escaped  him,  and  in  justice  to  his  reputation  it 
must  be  mentioned  that  many  of  his  most  grotesque  and  humor- 
ous expressions  have  occurred  in  connection  with  the  public  inti- 
mations he  makes,  and  not  at  all  in  the  body  of  his  sermons.  It 
is  his  custom  to  make  such  announcements  before  he  gives  out  his 
text,  and  sometimes  he  will  talk  for  half  an  hour  on  the  topics 
which  come  thus  incidentally  before  him,  in  a  strain  of  bold  and 
caustic  criticism,  which  must  often  try  severely  the  gravity  of  his 
audience.  The  great  redeeming  feature  of  his  wit  is  the  sturdy 
common-sense  that  constantly  pervades  it  ;  yet  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  the  very  sharpness  of  his  "  hits  "  tends,  however  para- 
doxical it  may  seem,  to  blunt  the  effect  which  they  produce,  and 
may  not  unfrequently  take  away  from  the  power  of  appeals  which 
otherwise  would  be  absolutely  irresistible.  When,  however,  his 
humor  is  under  the  restraint  of  his  pen,  it  is  everything  that  can 
be  desired,  and  the  fine  taste  which  in  the  heat  of  extempore 
utterance  is  for  the  time  dethroned  assumes  its  wonted  sway. 
The -articles  on  Church  Music,  Organ-playing,  and  others  of  a 
similar  strain,  in  the  "  Summer  of  the  Soul,"  are  exceedingly 
amusing,  and  most  telling  because  most  true  ;  but  it  is  in  personal 
controversy  that  the  full  force  of  this  faculty  comes  out.  It  is  Mr. 
Beecher's  sting,  and  it  is  always  ready  in  self-defence.  Woe  to 
the  individual  who  becomes  its  victim  ;  it  is  bad  enough  to  be 


MANLY   INDEPENDENCE.  427 

anniliilated,  but  to  have  it  done  so  that  men  lau<yli  as  they  look 
on  is  most  insufferable.  Mr.  Beecher  plays  with  his  adversary, 
as  he  has  often  done  while  angling,  with  a  trout,  but  he  has  him 
hooked  all  the  while,  and  by  and  by  he  despatches  him  amid  the 
laughing  applause  of  the  spectators. 

Bat  we  cannot  conclude  without  specifying  his  outspoken^ 
manly  independence.  He  glories  in  free  speech,  and  he  makes 
full  use  of  his  liberty.  It  might  be  said  of  him  as  of  our  own 
stern  reformer,  that  he  fears  not  the  face  of  man,  but  speaks  with 
boldness  what  he  believes  to  be  the  truth,  be  the  consequences 
what  they  may.  Again  and  again  has  he  come  before  the  Ameri- 
can public  as  the  unflinching  advocate  of  justice  and  liberty,  and 
always  in  a  style  worthy  of  the  occasion  and  of  himself.  Never, 
perhaps,  did  he  appear  to  better  advantage  than  on  the  occasion 
of  his  withering  assault  on  the  American  Tract  Society,  on  the 
12th  of  May  last.  His  speech  on  that  day  will  take  its  place  with 
some  of  the  noblest  orations  of  modern  times,  and  has  in  it  the 
ring  of  genuine  eloquence.  On  the  day  preceding  its  delivery,  a 
Mr.  Daniel  Lord  had  made  a  casuistical,  we  might  almost  say  a 
Jesuitical,  defence  of  the  Society  for  sinfully  refusing  to  circulate 
tracts  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  Mr.  Beecher  in  a  speech 
■which  occupies  eight  or  nine  columns  of  the  New  York  Inde- 
pendent, and  which  is  reprinted  in  the  "  Summer  of  the  Soul," 
tears  his  argument  to  shreds,  and  rises  with  the  inspiration  of  his 
theme  into  a  strain  of  the  most  indignant  and  impassioned  denun- 
ciation. It  will  be  long  before  Mr.  Lord  enters  the  lists  again 
with  such  an  adversary.  The  ability  displayed  in  the  address  is 
remarkable,  and  yet  all  through  one  feels  as  if  the  orator  were  not 
putting  forth  his  full  strength,  but  had  still  a  great  force  in 
reserve,  which  he  might  have  brought  into  action  if  occasion  had 
required.  But  there  is  no  reserve  of  truth,  and  the  speaker 
*' plays  the  man."  It  is  something  to  know  that  in  America 
there  are  earnest  and  powerful  voices  uplifted  in  this  noble  cause, 


438  .  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

and  that  while  so  many  of  her  ministers  are  "  dumb  dogs,"  that 
cannot  or  will  not  bark,  there  are  not  a  few  honest  and  unfearing 
men,  who,  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher  and  Dr.  Cheever  at  their 
head,  refuse  to  keep  silence.  'Tis  such  as  they  who  are  yet  to 
wipe  away  this  national  reproach,  and  take  the  stripes  out  of 
America's  banner.  Let  us  strengthen  their  hands  in  this  good 
and  glorious  work,  and  let  us  cry  shame  on  the  men  who  can 
issue  pious  whinings  on  the  evil  of  dancing  and  "  bombard  '' 
men  for  smoking  tobacco  while  yet  they  are  unmoA'ed  by  the 
slave,  toiling  in  sorrow  beneath  his  galling  yoke,  or  crouching 
in  fear  beneath  the  cruel  scourge. 

Willingly  would  we  linger  longer  on  a  theme  so  interesting,  but 
we  must  forbear.  From  the  works  of  Mr.  Beecher  we  have  de- 
rived the  purest  pleasure  and  the  highest  profit,  and  while  we  can- 
not unqualifiedly  approve  of  all  he  says  or  does,  and  do  not  wish 
that  every  minister  should  be  a  facsimile  of  him,  yet  we  cannot 
doubt  that  his  influence  upon  the  pulpits  and  the  pews  both  of  his 
own  country  and  ours  will  tell  powerfully  for  good.  The  rich 
blessing  which  has  rested  on  his  labors  seems  to  stamp  with  the 
Divine  approval  the  course  which  he  has  followed  ;  and  instead  of 
standing  by  to  rail  and  condemn,  as  so  many  have  done,  we  would 
stretch  a  brother's  hand  to  him  across  the  wide  Atlantic,  and  bid 
him  heartily  "  God  speed." 


By  PROFESSOR  NOAH  PORTER,  D.D. 

{From  Hearth  and  Home. ) 

To  hear  Mr.  Beecher  with  the  highest  enjoyment,  and  to  appre- 
ciate him  with  full  effect,  one  should  hear  him  from  the  Plymouth 
pulpit  and  in  the  Plymouth  Church.  Tf  he  is  heard  for  the  first 
time,  it  is  better  to  start  from  New  York  and  make  one  of  the 


I 


CHARACTER  OF  PLYMOUTH   CONGREGATION.         429 

strangers  from  all  parts  of  the  country  who  stream  up  the  hill  from 
the  Brooklyn  Ferry,  all  eager  and  animated  with  the  same  desire 
to  see  and  hear  Mr.  Beecher — to  hear  and  see  whom  was,  per- 
haps, one  of  the  attractions  which  brought  them  to  the  great 
metropolis.  The  visitor  is  happy  who,  after  not  a  little  jostling 
at  the  door  and  a  brief  conference  with  the  somewhat  consequential 
but  always  complaisant  usher,  finds  himself  provided  with  a  seat, 
and  is  so  comfortably  settled  as  to  look  around  upon  the  congre- 
gation while  he  awaits  the  preacher. 

The  audience  is  composed  of  people  from  all  ranks  in  society,  of 
all  degrees  of  culture,  and,  as  it  would  seem,  of  an  endless  variety 
of  religious  beliefs.  The  millionnaire  is  there  seeking  excitement 
and  counsel,  and  so  is  the  poor  widow,  lonely  and  abject,  longing 
for  a  word  of  comfort  and  sympathy.  The  man  or  woman  with 
whom  life  has  always  gone  hardly,  with  downcast  eye  and  dis- 
heartened aspect,  has  come  to  be  assured  of  another  life  which  for 
either  may  go  more  smoothly.  The  sceptic,  blase  with  doubt  and 
contemptuous  in  philosophic  piide,  has  come  for  a  new  sensation 
of  excitement,  a  fresh  psychological  observation  on  the  credulous 
enthusiasm  of  preacher  and  people,  or,  perhaps,  for  a  brief  respite 
from  his  arid  unbelief  in  the  oasis  of  an  hour  of  imagined  faith. 
The  young  are  there,  buoyant  with  improved  hopes  ;  the  aged, 
cheerful  with  tried  serenity.  There  are  also  scores  of  trashy  and 
flippant  believers,  who  would  scarcely  condescend  to  believe  in 
Christ  unless  Mr.  Beecher  were  to  be  his  forerunner  ;  and  other 
scores  of  rampaging  reformers,  who  are  attracted  by  the  freedom 
of  his  assaults  upon  everything  venerable  and  old,  upon  the  old 
creeds  and  the  old  ways,  upon  tedious  prayers  and  long-winded 
sermons.  These  make  up  the  drift-wood  of  the  congregation, 
somewhat  obtrusively  conspicuous,  but  not  very  valuable.  But  all 
have  come  with  a  will,  and  they  seat  themselves  with  an  air  of 
bustling  expectation  that  looks  for  something  worth  hearing,  and 
is  ready  to  meet  the  preacher  with  quick  and  responsive  sympa- 


430  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

thy.  After  a  few  minutes,  less  sombre  and  grave  in  its  impressions 
than  is  customary  in  most  churches,  the  organ  breaks  in  with  the 
opening  voluntary,  and  the  long-expected  preacher  emerges  into 
or  upon  the  pulpit  from  an  opening  beneath  the  gallery,  some- 
what like  a  troglodyte  from  his  cave.  His  face  is  grave  with 
thought  and  excited  by  feeling,  for  he  comes  directly  and  freshly 
from  the  meditation  of  his  theme.  His  drooping  eyelids,  his 
heavy  features,  his  sensitive  mouth,  his  strong  and  massive  jaw 
indicate  talent,  energy,  and  fire,  but  they  by  no  means  betoken  all 
the  imaginative  power,  the  affluent  and  often  felicitous  diction, 
the  subtle  and  ready  humor,  and  the  kindling  sensibility  that  shall 
soon  leap  from  his  tongue,  light  up  his  face,  and  wake  up  the 
whole  man. 

He  begins  with  a  brief  invocation  in  a  low  and  not  very  devo- 
tional tone,  which  is  followed  by  a  spirited  hymn,  in  singing 
which  all  the  worshippers  join  with  a  life  and  a  heartiness  not  often 
surpassed.  Then  follows  a  prayer,  simple,  unique  and  not  over 
long  ;  for  Mr.  Beecher  is  very  hard  upon  the  old-time  "  long 
prayer."  In  his  case,  the  prayer,  even  if  it  be  long,  is  not  dull. 
If  he  occasionally  preaches  in  his  prayer,  he  is  always  spirited. 
If  he  is  slightly  too  colloquial  in  his  tones,  he  is  not  irreverent  in 
his  words  and  feelings.  Another  hymn  follows,  and  then  the  ser- 
mon. What  the  sermon  is  in  its  matter  may  be  learned  from  the 
volume  before  us.  What  it  is  in  the  manner  can  only  be  felt  by 
the  hearing,  as  the  preacher  proceeds  from  the  colloquial  and  the 
sententious  to  the  imaginative  and  glowing  passages,  as  he  steps 
aside  for  this  or  that  homely  but  apt  illustration,  darts  here  and 
there  a  home-thrust  for  the  conscience,  lingers  on  a  pleasant  de- 
scription, allows  a  sally  of  quiet  but  telling  humor,  a  good-natured 
personality,  and  all  the  while  is  impressing  his  theme  more  closely 
upon  the  heart,  till  he  closes  with  an  energetic  appeal. 

But  whether  we  hear  or  read  Mr.  Beecher's  sermons,  whether 
we  like  or  dislike  them,  we  cannot  but  acknowledge  their  power. 


I 


MR.    BEECHER'S   SYMPATHY.  431 

Whatever  may  be  their  defects,  they  are  distinguished  by  the  fol- 
lowing excellencies  :  they  overflow  with  human  sympathy.  They 
come  from  a  man  who  has  a  royal  and  generous  nature  in  the 
capacity  to  feel  with  other  men,  who  is  not  too  niggardly  to 
rejoice  with  those  who  rejoice,  and  is  not  too  exclusive  or  distant 
to  weep  with  those  who  weep. 

He  sympathizes  with  all  sorts  of  men,  with  the  poor  as  well  as 
with  the  rich — we  should  rather  say,  with  the  poor  and  neglected 
more  than  with  any  other.  He  sympathizes  with  nature  as  truly 
as  with  man,  and  most  intensely.  His  taste  for  farming  and 
gardening  is  well  known. 

It  breaks  out  in  almost  every  sermon,  in  brief  snatches  of 
felicitous  description,  as  well  as  in  never-ending  allusions  to  fruits 
and  flowers,  and  to  the  processes  of  growth  and  culture.  Scarcely 
a  discourse  is  delivered  in  which  a  lawn,  a  shrub,  a  flower  is  not 
so  well  painted  that  you  almost  see  the  drooping  branches  and 
hear  the  rustling  breeze  and  feel  its  refreshing  breath. 

Mr.  Beecher  is  eminently  imaginative.  His  power  of  drawing 
ideal  pictures  for  the  mind's  eye,  and  of  gilding  them  with  the 
sunlight  of  his  own  warm  heart,  is  marvellous,  if  it  be  judged 
from  the  images  of  a  single  discourse.  But.  when  estimated  by 
the  stream  of  sermons,  speeches,  and  lectures,  when  seen  to  flow 
unceasingly  from  his  fertile  fancy  in  inexhaustible  variety,  it 
astonishes  us  by  its  productive  power,  as  well  as  by  the  copious  and 
felicitous  diction  which  this  creative  power  has  ever  at  command. 

He  is  individual.  His  thoughts  are  his  own,  and  he  delights  to 
express  them  in  d  way  of  his  own.  He  does  not  follow  the  con- 
ventionalities of  the  pulpit  ;  sometimes  he  disregards  what  are 
called  its  proprieties — so  freely  does  he  utter  the  sentiments  which 
he  holds,  and  use  the  language  and  illustrations  which  best  express 
and  enforce  his  opinions,  as  a  man  speaks  familiarly  and  frankly 
to  his  neighbor  or  friend.  He  never  lacks  variety.  No  one  ser- 
mon is  like  another. 


4:33  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Every  one  is  fresh  and  living  by  special  detail  of  application. 
He  is  also  eminently  practical.  For  truth  in  the  abstract  he  cares 
but  little,  whether  the  truth  be  theological,  scientific,  political  or 
moral,  but  for  truth  when  it  is  applied  and  acted  out,  he  is  in- 
tensely earnest.  His  mind  dwells  in  the  region  of  action  and  feel- 
ing, and  he  abounds  in  advice  and  illustrations  which  concern  the 
uses  of  truth  in  the  actual  life  in  which  he  and  his  hearers  are 
living. 

For  this  reason  he  is  bold,  sometimes  audacious,  and  occasionally 
personal  ;  now  and  then  needlessly  and  offensively  particular  and 
coarse  ;  at  least,  he  would  be  so  were  he  not  always  elevated 
above  the  mean  by  the  dignity  of  an  earnest  purpose  and  a  sunny 
temper. 

His  denunciation  of  corruption  in  politics  and  in  trade,  his  fear- 
lessness of  talk  concerning  men  and  things  in  Wall  Street,  at 
Albany,  and  in  Washington,  have  made  him  a  name  and  power  in 
high  places.  He  is  conspicuously  broad  and  liberal  in  his  Chris- 
tian sympathies.  He  shows  not  the  scantiest  remnant  of  sectarian 
or  denominational  predilection.  The  facts  and  truths  of  the  Gos- 
pel in  which  all  Christians  agree  seem  so  completely  to  absorb  his 
energies  of  thought  and  feeling  as  to  leave  no  place  for  any  interest 
in  questions  of  minor  and  questionable  importance.  The  duties  of 
the  Christian  spirit  and  life,  which  all  Christians  so  unanimously 
acknowledge,  and  so  universally  fail  satisfactorily  to  perform,  are 
so  surpassingly  important  as  to  arouse  all  his  zeal  for  their  enforce- 
ment. But  what  he  loses  in  the  sympathy  of  the  narrow-minded 
of  his  own  denomination  is  more  than  balanced  by  the  greater 
readiness  with  which  he  is  listened  to  by  those  who  are  disgusted 
with  the  jangle  of  sectarian  strifes  and  the  exclusiveness  of  secta- 
rian pretension.  But  he  is  not  for  this  reason  the  less,  but,  per- 
haps, the  more  earnestly  and  positively  Christian.  If  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian is  to  honor  Christ  with  a  fervent  faith,  a  devoted  reverence,  to 
delight  and  to  magnify  his  meek  and  forgiving  spirit,  to  exalt  him 


OCCASIONAL   DEFECTS.  433 

as  the  only  and  the  perfect  exemplar  of  the  Christian  life,  to  bow 
before  him  as  the  one  unfathomable  Being  among  all  who  have  as- 
sumed the  form  of  man,  and  as  the  revealer  and  fulness  of  the  un- 
seen Godhead,  and  to  extol  him  as  the  all  in  all  for  man's  forgive- 
ness and  eternal  life,  then  is  Mr.  Beecher  eminently  a  Christian 
and  a  Christian  preacher  ;  even  though  we  cannot  accept  all  the 
dogmas  which  he  seeks  to  expound,  and  are  not  always  edified  by 
his  phrenological  theology. 

These  excellencies  are  marred  by  occasional  defects.  Were  he 
always  wise  or  always  just,  he  were  more  than  human.  A  nature 
which  is  so  sympathetic,  earnest,  individual  and  aggressive  as  his 
must  seem  at  tiuies  intensely  egotistic,  whether  it  be  so  or  not. 
A  nature  so  fervent  and  glowing  must  seem,  perhaps  must  be, 
extravagant  in  thought  and  language.  But  these  and  other  defects 
do  not  greatly  weaken  his  power  ;  nor  ought  they  to  detract  from 
his  influence  and  honor.  His  sermons  are  not  only  heard  but  they 
are  read  with  enthusiasm  in  every  part  of  the  land.  Multitudes 
read  these  who  would  read  no  other  sermons.  Many  a  lonely  in- 
valid weeps  for  joy  over  the  consolations  which  he  utters,  made 
fresh  and  warm  as  they  are  by  the  gushing  sympathy  with  which  he 
speaks  them.  Many  a  solitary  dweller  in  the  forest,  or  upon  the  prai- 
rie, brightens  his  lonely  Sunday  by  the  perusal  of  one  of  Beecher's 
sermons.  Here  and  there  a  few  scattered  worshippers,  without 
either  church  or  clergyman,  listen  to  one  as  read  in  a  school-house 
or  kitchen,  and  are  marvellously  strengthened  and  cheered  thereby 
for  the  trials  and  labors  of  their  remote  and  lonely  life.  These 
sermons  carry  with  them  wherever  they  go  the  blessings  of  cheer- 
ful hope,  of  patient  trust,  of  active  love,  and  Christ-like  sympa- 
thy, and  they  return  to  their  author  the  thanks  and  blessings  of 
multitudes  whom  his  comforting  and  inspiring  words  have  helped 
in  their  life  pilgrimage. 


A  NEW   YEAR'S   EVE   AT  BEECHER'S. 


By    EDWARD    EGGLESTON. 

{Ffom  Hearth  and  Home.) 

This  Leisurely  Saimtcrer  went  to  hear  Mr.  Beecher. 

It  was  not  the  first  time.  The  first  time  one  enters  that 
homely,  commodious  barn  and  listens  to  the  most  famous  of  pulpit 
orators^  is  not  easily  forgotten.  But  that  is  long  gone  by  with 
me.  I  have  long  since  ceased  to  laugh  at  the  joke  of  the  street- 
car men,  who  are  so  accustomed  to  lose  two  thirds  of  their  cargo  on 
Sundays  at  Orange  Street,  that  instead  of  calling  the  street  they 
sing  out,  "  Henry  Ward  Beecher. "  The  last  one  I  rode  with 
varied  the  pleasantry  by  crying  in  a  dry,  matter-of-course  way, 
"Beecher  Station."  All  the  sensation  of  novelty  has  gone,  but 
the  sensation  of  freshness  will  never  wear  out  while  Beecher  con- 
tinues to  be  Beecher. 

I  hope  nobody  who  reads  this  letter  will  expect  me  to  criticise 
Mr.  Beecher.  I  should  almost  as  soon  attempt  to  criticise  Shake- 
speare. 

The  subject  is  so  hackneyed,  it  is  so  vast,  the  man  has  so  many 
sides,  and  a  Leisurely  Saunterer  is  so  little  inclined  to  grapple  with 
such  a  theme.  I  shall  not  do  it  if  I  can  help  it.  It  is  better  to 
gossip  about  a  man  than  to  analyze  him  seriously. 

And  then  we  wondered,  as  we  often  had  wondered  before,  how 
one  man  could  for  near  a  quarter  century  hold  such  a  throng  of 
hearers,      Mr.  Beecher  has  delivered  nearly  two  thousand  sermons 


I 


A   NEW   YEAR'S   EVE   AT    BEECHER'S.  435 

in  this  place,  and  wliether  it  rains,  hails,  or  shines,  the  same  crowd 
of  eager,  expectant  faces  look  at  him  from  the  pews  in  front,  from 
the  galleries  above,  from  the  little  loft  of  a  gallery  in  the  very 
ceiling. 

There  is  no  architecture  about  the  church,  no  ornament,  no 
flummery.     A  church  with  such  a  preacher  needs  nothing  more. 

As  the  years  go  by,  his  popularity  becomes  deeper  and  stronger. 
The  country  merchants  never  fail  to  hear  him  when  they  are  in 
New  York.  The  Southerner  listens  to  him  as  eagerly  as  the 
Maine  lumberman.  His  seimons  are  printed  and  read  everywhere. 
No  modern  preacher  without  being  the  head  of  a  sect  ever  had 
such  a  hold  upon  human  beings.  And  so  we  were  wondering  as 
we  had  often  wondered  at  the  intellectual  wonder  before,  when  the 
still,  strong  face  appeared  at  the  side-door,  and  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  glided  into  the  pulpit  and  sat  down  in  a  chair. 

And  then  we  ceased  to  wonder,  as  we  always  cease  to  wonder 
when  that  face  appears.  The  nose  is  a  Doric  column  full  of 
strength,  simplicity,  majesty.  The  mouth  is  sensuous  and  fiim, 
and  carries  in  repose  tbe  set  which  one  sees  in  the  portraits  of 
AVashington.  The  forehead  has  no  "  bumps,"  it  is  full,  round, 
and  flowing.  All  the  lines  of  Beecher's  face  flow  into  one  an- 
other ;  there  are  no  breaks.  All  the  traits  of  the  man  seem  to 
flow  into  one  another.  Every  faculty  and  feeling  is  driven  of  the 
masterful  will,  a  will  powerful  enough  to  rule  any  state  or  direct 
any  army. 

Pshaw  !  there,  I  am  criticising  and  analyzing  !  I  did  not  mean 
to  do  that,  for  it  is  a  most  unsatisfactory  work.  But  Beecher's 
face  set  me  off.  And  I  want  to  add  that  this  majestic  counte- 
nance is,  in  speaking,  and  particularly  in  conversation,  one  of  the 
most  sensitive  and  mobile  faces  in  the  world.  No  woman's  face 
vibrates  more  keenly  with  the  strong  play  of  feeling  beneath. 

And  Mr.  Beecher's  great,  strong  physiognomy  shows,  all  over 
it,  the  lines  of  suffering.     These  leaders  of  humanity  must  be  pre- 


436  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

pared  for  their  work  by  suflEering.  Some  of  the  world's  battles 
have  been  fought  out  in  this  man's  soul. 

Mr.  Beecher  sits  there,  with  a  graceful  vase  of  flowers  on  one 
side  and  a  rustic  basket  of  flowers  on  the  other,  in  an  attitude  that 
indicates  his  attention  to  Zundel's  sweet,  spiritual  fingering  of  that 
great  organ,  and  we,  mentally  sauntering,  recall  a  sentence  which 
we  met  in  a  French  magazine  the  other  day,  in  substance  that  an 
orator  must  not  be  judged  by  his  discourses,  but  by  the  memory  of 
his  effects.  There  are  few  great  preachers  who  could  bear  so  well 
to  be  judged  by  their  discourses  as  ""  Ir.  Beecher,  and  yet  it  will 
be  a  great  injustice  if  posterity  shall  try  to  estimate  him  by  these. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  he  has  in  many  regards  changed  the 
current  of  religious  thought  ;  that  he  has  changed  the  manner  of 
the  young  ministers  of  his  day,  that  he  has  affected  public  ques- 
tions, and  that  he  has  had  a  greater  influence  on  the  religious  life 
of  America  than  any  other  man.  I  do  not  belong  to  his  sect,  and 
do  not  agree  with  him  entirely,  but  this  much  must  be  said  of  his 
oratory,  that  it  has  had  a  more  deep  and  intellectual  and  perma- 
nent effect  than  of  any  other  living  man.  Spurgeon  and  Bishop 
Simpson,  princely  orators  as  they  are,  have  not  contributed  any 
fresh  thoughts  to  the  general  stock  of  human  intelligence.  They 
have  played  powerfully  on  the  emotional  nature,  they  have 
moulded  individual  character,  but  they  have  not  changed  the  cur- 
rent of  opinion. 

It  is  only  in  the  last  half-dozen  years  that  the  general  public 
have  found  out  that  Beecher  is  really  one  of  the  most  conservative 
of  men.  lie  has  happened  to  be,  by  conviction,  in  an  attitude  that 
made  him  appear  a  radical. 

In  truth,  the  conservative  element  predominates.  If  he  were 
president  to-day,  radicals  would  disown  liiin  in  a  month. 

But  while  I  have  drifted  into  this  critical  vein  again,  he  is  read- 
ing a  hymn.  There  is  nothing  worthy  of  remark  about  Mr. 
Beecher's  reading,  except  that  it  is  not  worthy  of  remark. 


A  NEW    YEAR'S   EVE  AT   BEElHER'S.  437 

It  is  monotonous,  commonplace,  and  like  a  Congregational  min- 
ister. So  while  he  is  reading  1  may  just  as  well  say  that  some  of 
his  best  things  never  get  into  print.  I  remember  hearing  him  tell 
once,  in  an  illustration,  how  a  ragged  street-boy  could  enjoy  a 
garden  looking  through  a  fence,  and  in  his  impulsive  description, 
he  planted  his  hands  upon  his  knees,  mimicked  the  manner  of  the 
ragamuffin,  and  exclaimed,  "  Golly  I  how  nice  it  is  !"  The  pict- 
ure was  perfect,  but  it  was  not  in  the  printed  discourse.  And  it 
was  well,  for  the  printed  discourse  could  not  make  it  clear  that  the 
preacher  had  never  for  a  moment  sacrificed  his  dignity,  and  had  in 
the  application  of  this  very  illustration  touched  the  depths  of 
every  heart  and  turned  the  smiles  to  glistening  tears.  And  now 
we  float  out  on  the  tide  of  this  ocean  of  congregational  singing. 
Zundel  and  his  organ,  the  choir,  the  chorus,  the  congregation,  the 
preacher,  all  are  making  a  joyful  noise  unto  the  Lord,  and  we  can- 
not resist  the  influence  of  the  hymn  or  of  the  tender,  touching, 
spiritual  prayer  that  follows. 

After  another  hymn  Mr.  Beecher  reads  for  his  text,  "  But  this 
people  that  knoweth  not  the  law  are  cursed,"  and  then  with  a 
quiet  dignity  proceeds  to  explain  that  the  high  priest  was  very 
angry  when  he  said  this,  and  that  the  translators  did  not  give  it 
the  full  force  of  the  original,  which  is  a  burst  of  passion  equiva- 
lent to,  "  This  damned  vulgar  rabble."  And  so  he  introduced  a 
sermon  upon  vulgarity,  in  which  with  great  deliberateness,  and 
with  his  vehemence  rather  in  word  than  in  gesture,  he  tore  open 
the  little  vulgarities  and  "  sweet  insincerities"  of  life  and  conver- 
sation and  literature,  of  money-getting  and  of  money-spending. 
And  we  could  not  but  wonder  as  we  listened  that  the  professors  at 
Harvard  should  discountenance  oratory,  like  the  bob-tailed  fox 
that  wanted  all  tails  cut  off  to  match  his  own  !  But,  as  we  looked 
down  the  aisle  and  saw,  as  one  can  see  in  any  congregation  sitting 
bolt  upright  under  these  brave  and  cutting  denunciations  of  every 
sort  of  treason  to  conscience,  men  who  do  sell  their  principles  in- 


438  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

stead  of  their  goods,  we  asked  tlie  lady  with  us  whether  oratory 
could  be  worth  anything.  And  she  said,  "  What  would  these 
men  have  been  if  they  had  not  heard  these  sermons!  " 

But  how  incomplete  is  this  letter  !  Who  can  describe  the 
majestic  deliberateness,  quick  wit,  the  sharp  thrusts,  and  the  elo- 
quent bursts  that  seem  to  come  along  in  the  right  time,  all  of 
their  own  accord,  and  who  describe  the  solemn,  touching  perora- 
tion in  which  he  referred  to  the  close  of  the  year  ? 

In  an  announcement  before  the  sermon,  he  extended  a  broad  in- 
vitation to  everybody  who  chose  to  shake  hands  with  him  on  New 
Year's  day,  to  call  at  his  house.  And  sauntering  along  Columbia 
Heights  the  next  day,  we  could  not  resist  the  impulse  to  saunter 
in  and  shake  his  democratic  and  brotherly  hand.  A  young  man 
in  threadbare  coat  was  getting  a  most  cordial  greeting  as  we  came 
in,  and  others  of  the  rougher  classes  were  on  the  sidewalk  as  we 
came  out.  The  Leisurely  Saunterer. 


By   PROFESSOR   JAMES    M.    HOPPIN,    YALE   COLLEGE. 

{B-om  the  New  Englander,  Vol.  XXIX.,  1870.) 

Other  ministers  of  Christ  may  be  more  singly  devoted  to  the 
work  of  saving  souls  ;  other  luinisters  may  be  a  hundredfold  more 
profound  theologians,  but  few  preachers  living,  or  who  have  ever 
lived,  have  greater  power  with  the  people  to  do  them  good  than 
Henry  Ward  Beecher.  While  he  is  pre-eminently  a  popular 
preacher  he  is  not,  in  the  common  sense  of  the  term,  a  sensational 
preacher,  whose  false  popularity  has  been  so  graphically  described 
by  Dr.  Chalmers  in  these  words  :  "  There  is  a  high  and  far- 
sounding  popularity,  which  is  indeed  a  most  worthless  article  ;  felt 
by  all  who  have  it  most  to  be  greatly  more  oppressive  than 
gratifying  ;  a  popularity   of  stare  and  pressure  and  animal  heat 


MR.    BEECHER   CANNOT   BE   IMITATED.  439 

and  a  whole  tribe  of  other  annoyances  which  it  brings  around  the 
person  of  its  unfortunate  victim  ;  a  popularity  which  rifles  home 
of  its  society,  and,  by  deviating  a  man  above  his  fellows,  places 
him  in  a  region  of  desolation,  where  the  intimacies  of  human  fel- 
lowship are  unfelt,  and  where  he  stands  a  conspicuous  mark  for 
the  shafts  of  malice,  envy,  and  detraction  ;  a  popularity,  which, 
with  its  head  among  thorns,  and  its  feet  in  the  treacherous  quick- 
sands, has  nothing  to  hold  the  agonies  of  its  tottering  existence 
but  the  hosannas  of  a  drivelling  generation  !"  Not  such  a  popu- 
larity is  Mr.  Beecher's.  It  rests  on  solider  grounds.  He  remains 
rational,  earnest,  natural,  scriptural,  while  mightily  attractive  to  the 
popular  mind  and  heart. 

Mr.  Beecher  is  a  man  of  genius  and  cannot  be  imitated.  The 
imitations  are  conclusive  failures,  like  the  fox  tbat  tries  to  copy 
the  lion  in  his  roar  and  ramp,  or  the  blackbird  that  essays  to  sing 
like  the  thrush.  Some  one  has  said  of  Mr.  Beecher  that  he  is 
indeed  a  preacher  for  the  common  people,  but  he  is  not  a  preacher 
for  the  educated  and  refined  class.  This  is  the  highest  praise  to 
say  that  a  man  is  a  preacher  to  the  common  people. 

******* 

No  one  who  has  studied  Mr.  Beecher's  sermons  and  more  elabo- 
rate addresses  can  aflBrm  that  he  is  wanting  also  in  the  logical  fac- 
ulty. Whether  it  was  logic,  or  whatever  it  was,  it  was  something 
of  power  and  tenacious  grip  and  weight,  that  wrestled  with, 
fought,  and  overthrew  that  big,  turbulent  English  populace  that 
roared  out  in  defiance  against  the  American  orator  in  those  stormy 
Liverpool  meetings,  so  memorable  in  the  history  of  the  late  war. 

The  first  half  of  Mr.  Beecher's  sermons  is  commonly  taken  up 
in  a  kind  of  ratiocination,  or  in  a  logical  development  of  the  pure 
philosophy  of  the  text — showing  its  harmony  with  the  constitution 
of  the  mind  and  with  the  facts  of  being.  He  builds  up  this 
philosophical  argument  with  considerable  care.  His  metaphysics, 
it  is  true,  belong  neither  to  the  Scotch  nor  to  the  German  school, 


440  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

that  we  can  perceive,  and  it  lias  been  wliispered  that  he  has  elabo- 
rated for  himself  a  system  of  mental  philosophy  founded  mainly 
on  the  "  science"  of  phrenology  ;  but  however  that  may  be,  he 
recognizes  the  need  of  metaphysics,  and  of  philosophical  reasoning 
and  analysis  in  his  instruction  of  the  people  in  divine  truth. 

In  one  department  of  reasoning,  on  the  moral  side  of  man's 
nature,  that  which  has  relation  to  his  conscience,  moral  tempera- 
ment, affections,  sensibilities,  will — in  all  that  goes  to  make  char- 
acter— he  is  powerful  and  penetrating.  His  reasoning  to  the 
depths  of  human  nature,  sinking  shafts  as  it  were  in  the  original 
soil  of  humanity,  gives  him  a  solid  foundation  to  build  on.  The 
practical  issues  of  the  sermon  thus  have  weight  and  authority,  as 
if  vitally  connected  with  and  springing  from  fundamental  truth. 
After  this  philosophical  or  theoretical  development  of  the  text, 
exhibiting  the  harmony  of  its  main  idea  with  the  moral  constitu- 
tion of  man  and  the  plan  of  his  life  under  the  government  of  God 
— striking  the  leading  thought  of  the  text  and  viewing  it  in  its 
fundamental  relations  to  moral  truth — then  comes  the  free  illustra- 
tion and  application  ;  and  here  the  sermon  takes  a  broad  range 
through  the  wide  relations  of  human  life,  society,  and  business. 

His  great  aim  is  to  bring  out  and  build  up  a  genuine  Christian 
manhood,  one  made  perfect  in  Christ,  lie  says  of  man  :  "  He  is 
born  further  from  his  nature  than  any  other  nature  on  earth — that 
some  creatures  are  born  right  up  to  their  nature.  They  have 
their  whole  nature  at  birth  ;  but  man  is  ever  striving  to  regain  his 
true  nature,  and  sorrow  is  the  true  conflict  in  men's  way  to  them- 
selves." His  conception  of  religion — and  here,  doubtless,  is  the 
place  where  he  most  lays  himself  open  to  the  charge,  so  frequently 
made  against  him,  of  the  lack  of  the  evangelical  element — does  not 
fasten  itself  upon  the  doctrinal  idea,  the  dogma  in  form,  but  upon 
its  underlying  truth  or  substance.  The  interior  spiritual  sub- 
stance of  religion  is  transcendantly  of  more  importance  than  its 
formulas,  than  the  idea  forms,   government-forms,  worship-forms 


CHRIST   VERILY   GOD.  441 

of  the  Church.  He  aims  at  that  within  the  man  that  moulds  his 
life — the  soul's  interior  and  essential  good.  No  man  can  express 
himself  more  strongly  upon  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
and  upon  the  utter  need  of  God  to  cleanse  the  heart  and  convert 
the  soul.  In  the  orthodox  "  plan  of  salvation,"  however,  in  the 
employment  of  the  words,  "  atonement,"  the  "  cross,"  the 
*'  blood  of  Christ,"  he  does  not  come  up  to  the  requirements  of 
the  accepted  theology  of  the  Church,  and  he  would  be  indiscrimi- 
nating,  we  judge,  when  pressed  to  close  distinctions,  and  even  to 
clear,  practical  counsels  to  some  minds  seeking  the  way  of  forgive- 
ness and  eternal  life,  but  he  preaches  what  he  claims  to  be  the 
essence  of  the  Gosj^el,  God  saving  men  in  Christ.  His  theology 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  word — Christ.  Christ  is  verily  God, 
made  personal  to  you  and  me — Christ  dwelling  in  your  hearts  by 
faith — this  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  his  belief.  He  says  to 
men,  "  You  all  have  sinned,  and  are  sinning.  You  don't  know 
the  way  to  get  back  to  God.  Christ  presents  himself  to  you  in 
the  Gospel  and  declares,  I,  your  loving  Lord,  I,  your  Saviour,  I, 
your  Teacher  and  Friend,  am  the  way.  Love  me,  and  let  me  walk 
with  you  all  the  time,  and  I  will  see  that  you  have  a  perpetual 
consciousness  of  such  a  divdne  power  as  will  give  victory  to  the 
spiritual  side  of  your  nature  over  the  sensual  and  lower  side. 
Trust  not  your  own  strength.  Love  me,  and  let  me  love  you,  and 
I  will  save  you."  And  he  says  with  feeling,  "  Tell  me,  have  I 
failed  to  preach  a  living  Christ  ?  Tell  me,  have  I  failed  to  preach 
a  Christ  burning  with  sympathy  for  sinful  men  ?  Tell  me,  have  I 
failed  to  show  men,  dying  in  their  sins,  that  there  was  a  love  of 
God  that  could  put  its  arms  about  them,  and  cleanse  them,  and 
lift  them  up  into  its  own  felicity,  if  they  were  willing  ?  Have  I 
been  faithless  in  this  ?  Then  God  forgive  me  !  for  all  my  min- 
istry has  been  empty.  But  to  me  the  heaven  has  been  one  mag- 
nificent procession  of  divinities.  To  me  Christ  has  been  all  in  all, 
Alpha  and  Omega,  beginning  and  end,  ever-present,  and  ever- 
27 


443  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

'  living.      I  have,  to  be  sure,  not  preached  a  system  of  revelations. 
I  have  not  usfed  the  abstract  term  ^:>/«n  of  salvation.     I  have  not 
talked  about  the  atonement.     I  have  not  undertaken  to  sound  ab- 
stract doctrines  in  your  ears.     I  have  done  better  than  that  ;  and 
I  call  God  to  witness  that  it  is  better.     I  have  preached  a  living 
Jesus,  as  a  Brother,  a  Friend,  a  Saviour,  an  everlasting  God." 
/        The  sermon  entitled  "  Sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost"   is  one  of 
^  the  most  powerful  and  instructive  doctrinal  discourses  upon  that 
/   solemn  and  mysterious  theme  that  we  have  read  ;  and  few  sermons 
I  that  have  ever  been  written  have  less  of  the  husk  of  dogma  and 
I  more  of  the  sweet  fruit  of  spiritual  doctrine  in  them,  than  his  dis- 
course on  "  The  Comforting  God." 

But  it  is  not  as  a  doctrinal,  it  is  as  a  moral  preacher  that  he 
excels.  As  a  moral  pathologist  he  is  wonderfully  subtle  in  his 
perception  of  purpose  and  motive,  understanding  the  bad  tenden- 
cies as  well  as  the  nobler  instincts  of  the  human  heart,  following 
out  a  moral  truth  that  another  preacher  would  give  in  some  dry, 
formalistic  husk  of  statement  into  its  living  issues,  of  character, 
enlarging,  developing,  showing  how  it  works  in  real  life,  in  the 
family,  the  street,  the  church,  tracking  meanness  to  its  hiding- 
places,  unearthing  concealed  selfishness,  rousing  the  indolent  and 
sensual,  encouraging  the  meek  heart,  helping  the  doubtful,  seeing 
good  where  others  would  see  only  evil,  and  striving  to  build  up  a 
true  manhood  in  the  erring,  imperfect,  and  lost.  He  thinks  that 
Christianity  has  established  a  new  social  standard,  and  that  men 
are  not  to  be  judged  by  their  rank,  wealth,  or  accidental  circum- 
stances, but  by  their  moral  worth.  He  has  practical  faith  in 
human  brotherhood. 

It  is  time  that  we  should  say  a  word  upon  the  rhetorical  charac- 
teristics of  Mr.  Beecher's  discourses.  While  Mr.  Beecher's 
thoughts  are  not  always  marked  by  originality,  and  there  are  evi- 
dent signs  that  he  seizes  upon  the  living  thoughts  of  the  age,  the 
best  ideas  in  current  literature,  the  fresh  fruits  of  the  advanced 


OLD   TRUTHS   IN   NEW  FORMS.  443 

science  and  thinking  of  the  best  minds — that  he  is  the  expression 
rather  than  the  original  source  of  thought — yet  his  forms  of 
thought  and  expression  are  only  and  inimitably  his  own.  We 
can  recall  at  this  moment  but  a  single  quotation  from  a  foreign 
source^  and  that  from  Lord  Bacon,  in  any  of  his  discourses. 
With  such  an  exhaustless  fecundity  of  invention  he  has  indeed  no 
need  to  quote  from  others.  Especially  in  his  illustrations,  in 
which  lies  one  great  element  of  his  popularity,  he  employs  every- 
thing that  his  hand  can  lay  itself  upon,  from  the  last  truth  of  sci- 
ence to  the  most  insignificant  fact  or  object  in  nature.  One  can 
almost  seem  to  trace  the  natural  genesis  of  his  illustrations  in  any 
given  sermon. 

Old  truths  are  brought  out  in  new  and  vivid  lights.  Abstract 
truth  grows  picturesque  and  concrete.  It  beats  with  the  life- 
blood  of  the  present.  There  is  found  to  be  instruction  in  ever}'- 
thing,  good  in  everything.  The  elements  of  common-sense,  of 
reason,  of  nature,  of  a  large  humanity,  are  in  such  preaching. 
When  he  says  of  a  child  that  as  soon  as  he  knows  how  to  love 
father  and  mother,  and  to  say  "  dear  father,"  and  "  dear 
mother,"  then  he  knows  how  to  love  and  worship  God — people 
say  "  that  is  true,"  and  they  think  they  have  thought  this  them- 
selves before  Mr.  Bcechcr  thought  it,  notwithstanding  that  they 
have  acquired  a  new  idea.  He  thus  makes  the  people  a  part  with 
himself  ;  he  takes  them  into  his  confidence  ;  he  strikes  into  the 
real  current  of  their  thinking  ;  he  speaks  as  if  speaking  out  of 
their  thought.  There  is  a  strong  propulsion  given  to  his  words 
by  the  combined  unconscious  consent  of  many  minds  who,  as  it 
were,  listen  approvingly  as  if  to  their  own  ideas.  He  has  indeed 
found  the  great  secret  of  popular  power  such  as  John  the  Baptist 
had,  such  as  St.  Bernard  had,  such  as  Luther  had.  He  is  a 
"  king  of  men"  in  moral  and  spiritual  things.  He  takes  hold  of 
all  classes.  Old  men  read  his  sermons  when  they  can  read  noth- 
ing else  out  of  the  Bible.     In  the  log-house  of  the  pioneer  the 


444  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

"  Plymouth  pulpit  "  is  preacliing.  Young  men  in  the  universities 
go  to  his  discourses  as  to  fresh  springs,  and  many  a  young  man 
who  has  lost  interest  in  the  old  doctrines  has  been  brought  back 
to  the  life  and  substance  of  truth  by  perhaps  reading  in  the  news- 
papers the  reports  of  Mr.  Beecher's  sermons.  He  is  encouraging 
to  those  in  doubt.  He  is  a  hope-bringer.  He  believes  in  man. 
He  helps  man.  He  is  sympathetic  to  every  kind  of  mind.  He 
does  not  croak  or  scold.  He  is  not  solemn  and  stately,  though  he 
is  in  earnest,  and  sometimes  terribly  so.  How  impressive  the 
conclusion  of  the  discourse  on  "  Preparation  for  X>eath"  !  Few 
preachers  have  pursued  this  awful  theme  with  a  tread  of  more 
prophetic  majesty  and  power,  and  }et  with  more  of  the  sweetness 
and  light  of  Christian  truth.  But  no  one  can  trifle  with  such 
preaching  as  that.  The  most  careless  and  profligate  youth  would 
be  arrested  by  it  as  by  the  strong  hand  of  an  elder  brother  who 
knows  the  world  and  the  human  heart,  who  speaks  not  with  a 
weak  sentimentality,  but  with  the  authoiity  of  love,  of  righteous- 
ness, and  of  communion  with  God.  The  influence  of  ^Ir.  Beechcr 
as  a  preacher  to  young  men  who  swarm  to  the  metropolis  by 
myriads,  and  who  crowd  the  galleries  of  his  church  Sunday  after 
Sunday  with  eager  and  attentive  throngs,  is  of  incalculable  good. 
They  cannot  hear  his  shrewd  and  plain-spoken  counsel,  sent  home 
to  the  heart  by  all  that  rouses  and  attracts  manhood,  and  go  away 
and  plunge  into  vice.  It  is  impossible.  The  impression  must 
wear  off,  the  moral  sense  must  grow  dull,  the  nerve  of  manly  self- 
denial  must  be  relaxed,  before  the  youth  can  turn  again  to  low 
pleasures  with  any  zest.  Mr.  Beecher,  doubtless,  himself  might 
select  a  fresher  illustration,  but  we  would  liken  him  to  a  moral 
lighthouse  standing  on  a  dangerous  reef,  dashed  by  the  waves  that 
roar  around  it,  and  sending  its  Avarning  and  encouraging  beams  far 
over  the  wild  waters  ;  and  who  knows  how  many  a  bark,  half- 
wrecked  and  driving  on  to  destruction,  has  been  saved  by  its  light  ? 
Such  preaching  is  better  than  the  most  dignified  disquisitions  on 


THE   PRACTICAL   ELEMENT.  445 

scientific  theology,  arranged  according  to  the  approved  models  and 
methods  of  systematic  discourse,   cold,  intellectual,   shining  like 
stars  in  the  wintry  night,  millions  of  miles  distant  in  the  firma- 
ment of  heaven.     Not  that  doctrinal  preaching  does  not  have  its 
valuable  oflSce  and  place  ;  there  must  be  the  stars  in  heaven  as 
well  as  the  fires  on  earth  for  our  guidance  and  light.     And  Mr. 
Beecher  does  not,  it  seems  to  us,  sufficiently  prize  the  need  of  a 
clearly-defined   theological    philosophy — a   consistent   system    of 
truth — which  prevents  incongruous  and  rash  statements,  and  which 
appeals  to  the  reason.     The  practical  element,  which  is  so  noble  a 
one,  is  indescribably  aided  by  being  grounded  upon  the  speculative 
element,  and  he  who  preaches  from  a  well-wrought  philosophy  of 
faith  will  bring  to  bear  more  of  solid  weight  upon  any  one  point 
than  the  preacher  can  who  is  no  theologian  ;  and,  above  all,  he 
will  not  be  obliged  to  construct  a  new  philosophy  every  time  he 
preaches.     Such  preaching  has  in  it  the  prime  qualities  of  instruc- 
tion, authority,  strength,  and  is  really  conservative  of  the  evangel- 
ical element,  which  must  have  a  dogmatic  form  as  a  covering  to 
preserve  the  tender  life-seed  of  divine  truth.     The  preacher  who 
neglects  or  despises  the  study  of  theology  is  like  the  scientist  at 
the  present  day  who  should  attempt  to  investigate  and  teach  the 
phenomena  of  the  natural  world  by  the  instrumentality  of  his  own 
crude,   brief,   and   incomplete  theory,    knowing   nothing   of   the 
theories  upon  which  science  has  progressively  advanced  step  by 
step  toward  the  broader  and  clearer,  and,  at  the  same  time,  more 
intimate   knowledge    of   physical   truth.     And   men   should   have  • 
given  them  by  the  preacher  of  the  New  Testament,  in  clear  state- 
ments, the  vital  truths  of  the  Gospel — not  the  formal  plan  of  salva- 
tion it  may  be — but,  at  least,  in  what  that  salvation  consists,  and 
how  it  is  attained.     They  should  know  Christ's  real  work,  his  true 
efficiency  in  men's  spiritual  redemption.     They  should  be  made 
to  understand  the  way  of  eternal  life,  the  mediation  of  the  Son  of 
God,  and  this  should  be  definitely  communicated,  and  not  be  lost 
sight  of  in  generalities,  however  noble  and  eloquent. 


446  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Mr,  Beecher  is  an  epoch-making  man.  We  hold  him  to  be  the 
best  exponent  of  that  new  style  of  preaching,  providentially  adapted 
to  meet  the  wants  and  the  new  spirit  of  this  age,  and  to  reach  the 
great  masses  of  the  people,  fast  falling  away  from  the  old  forma] 
and  unsympathetic  methods  of  teaching.  He  will  have  exerted 
more  of  the  moulding  influence  upon  the  style  of  preaching  and 
modes  of  popular  religious  thought  in  his  age  than  any  other  man. 
Far  less  scholarly  and  philosophically  profound  than  Robertson, 
though  with  much  of  his  spiritual  earnestness  and  contempt 
of  mere  orthodox  cant  without  the  truth's  reality,  less  solid  in 
argument  than  Binney,  less  original  in  thought  than  .Bushnell, 
less  learned  as  a  theologian  and  exegete  than  hundreds  of  preach- 
ers in  England  and  America,  less  brilliant  than  the  great  French 
preachers,  dead  and  living,  none  of  them  may  compare  witb  him 
in  popular  power,  in  his  sway  over  tbe  minds  and  hearts  of  living 
men.  This  is  not  only  because  of  his  powerful  genius,  but  because 
of  his  true  comprehension  of  the  age  and  of  the  American  mind, 
because  of  his  large-souled  human  sympathy,  because  he  preaches 
out  of  himself  and  his  own  intensely-felt  and  heart-wrought  doc- 
trine instead  of  out  of  a  mere  doctrinal  system,  and,  above  all,  be- 
cause he  is  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  of 
Christ,  and  speaks,  as  it  were,  from  the  radiant  centre  of  its 
divine  heart  of  love  and  power.  What  Unitarian  preacher  or 
what  radical  reformer,  even  the  greatest,  can  aspire  to  a  tithe  of 
his  power  in  this  country,  or  ever  will  ? 

The  people  are  with  him.  They  always  hear  him  gladly. 
They  throng  after  him  in  great  multitudes  that  would  fain  be  fed — 
might  we  dare  to  reverently  hint  the  shadow  of  the  shade  of  such 
a  resemblance — fed  in  the  wilderness  of  this  barren  world  of  selfish 
living  with  the  bread  of  life  !  It  is  because  they  believe  that  he 
dispenses  the  true  Word  of  Christ,  the  nourishing,  multiplying, 
divine  word  of  life. 


MR.   BEECHER   A  SOCIAL   FORCE.  447 

By  REV.  A.  McELROY  WYLIE,  NEWTOWN,  PA. 

(3-om  Scribner's  Monthly,   October,  1872.) 

MR.     BEECHER    AS    A    SOCIAL    FORCE. 

The  forces  which  operate  in  the  development  and  direction 
of  human  society  are  generally  found  to  be  abstract  and  aggregated 
powers,  but  occasionally  a  single  man  becomes  a  distinct  social 
force  acting  upon  an  entire  nation,  or  even  upon  the  world  itself. 

Such  a  force  is  Mr.  Beecher.  Men  of  all  parties,  and  of  the 
most  divergent  creeds,  freely  recognize  him  as  an  element  of 
power  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

There  are  few  residents  of  New  York,  or  visitors  to  the  great 
Metropolis,  who  are  not  more  or  less  familiar  with  that  wide, 
spacious,  and  intensely  plain  church  structure  which  stands  in 
Orange  Street,  Brooklyn,  about  eight  minutes'  walk  from  the 
Fulton  Ferry.  The  building  itself  is  admirably  suited  to  the 
character  of  the  occupant  of  its  pulpit.  It  is  capacious,  light, 
thoroughly  vs'ell  ventilated,  cheerful — having  no  sympathy  with  a 
"  dim  religious  light,"  and  while  it  has  very  little,  indeed,  to 
amuse  the  eye,  or  to  challenge  sensuous  admiration,  there  is  an 
air  about  it  which  addresses  itself  to  the  higher  nature  of  man. 
If  you  are  about  to  hear  Mr.  Beecher  for  the  first  time,  it  is  more 
than  probable  that  you  go  with  some  degree  of  prejudice,  and  with 
a  disposition  to  apologize  to  yourself  or  to  some  one  else  for  this 
indulgence,  so  doubtful  in  its  propriety.  And  perhaps,  too,  these 
feelings  will  not  be  overcome  after  having  once  pressed  your  way 
through  that  crowd,  but  there  will  always  be  left  the  conviction 
that  you  ought  to  hear  him  again,  and  do  him  the  justice  of 
letting  him  speak  for  himself  against  your  prejudices  and  those  of 
the  world. 

But  when  you  have  heard  Mr.  Beecher  several  times  you  will 
begin  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the  occupant  of  Plymouth  Pulpit 


44:8  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

is  a  distinct  social  force,  or,  we  slioiild  say,  an  embodied  combi- 
nation of  social  forces.  You  will  conclude  that  he  possesses  an 
organization  wonderful  for  its  complexity,  and  yet  still  more  for 
its  harmony  of  parts,  and  you  will  be  led  to  ask  :  What  are  his 
peculiarities  ?  What  are  the  secrets  of  his  power  and  influence  ? 
One  who  has  enjoyed  his  acquaintance  and  often  felt  his  power, 
would  probably  begin  by  speaking  of  the  great  breadth  and  ful- 
ness of  the  man.  Mr.  Beecher,  to-day,  is  probably  one  of  the 
roundest  men  living.  He  presents  some  side  to  every  human 
being  he  approaches.  More  than  this,  he  draws  men  toward  him 
by  the  magnetism  which  seem  to  pervade  all  his  powers.  Every 
faculty  seems  to  evolve  an  influence,  and  the  mighty  current 
composed  of  these  concurring  influences  makes  the  man  a  niiignet, 
the  force  of  which  is  such  as  to  draw  great  masses  of  his  fellow- 
beings  toward  his  way  of  viewing  the  great  problems  of  life  and 
human  destiny.  His  sympathies  are  as  broad  as  his  perceptions, 
and  to  use  his  own  words,  addressed  to  the  writer  in  conversation, 
"  All  the  roads  in  creation  meet  at  my  door,  and  I  am  like  a  cow 
owned  and  milked  by  a  half-dozen  families." 

In  this  particular  he  is  a  "  debtor  to  all  men,"  and,  accord- 
ingly, all  feel  that  they  can  come  and  put  in  a  claim  for  the 
receipt  of  some  benefit.  All  denominations  can  claim  him,  for  he 
is  broad  enough  in  his  sympathies  and  comprehensive  enough  in 
his  sweep  of  the  truth  to  afford  a  support  for  all. 

The  Baptist  may  claim  him,  because,  in  his  view,  "  the 
Congregationalist  is  a  dry  Baptist,  and  the  Baptist  is  a  wet 
Congregationalist."  The  Methodist  may  claim  him  because  of 
the  ardor  and  freedom  of  his  speech  ;  his  love  of  revivals  ;  his 
respect  for  the  responsible  agency  of  man.  The  Presbyterian 
may  claim  him,  because  of  his  education  and  his  early  church 
connection  ;  and  because  after  a  rigid  examination  by  "  good  old 
Father  Hughes  of  Ohio,"  he  was  pronounced  so  thoroughly  ortho- 
dox that  he  "  leaned  a  little    t'other  way."     The  Quaker,   too. 


EMBRACING   ALL   SECTS.  449 

may  claim  him,  because  of  his  high  regard  for  the  intuitions  of  the 
moral  sense,  and  his  standing  declaration  of  independence  from  all 
bondage  to  outward  ordinances,  and  slavish  submission  to  the  man- 
imposed  bandages  and  badges  of  ecclesiasticism.  The  Low  Church 
Episcopalian  can  claim  him  because  of  his  intense  love  of  the 
beautiful,  and  his  admiration  of  order  and  symmetry.  And  even 
the  High  Church  and  the  Catholic  can  find  something  in  him  for 
his  touch  of  antiquarianism,  and  his  open  and  avowed  confession 
that  between  the  world  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Church  in  its 
comprehensive  sense,  embracing  all  forms  and  sects,  on  the  other, 
there  is  enough  of  truth,  enough  of  Christ  in  every  denomination  to 
save  a  man  ;  and  one  need  not  abjure  his  own  sect  in  order  to  be 
saved,  if  he  will  but  make  the  most  of  the  Light  and  Truth  which 
are  conveyed  to  him  in  the  channels  nearest  to  his  own  hand. 

The  best  proof  of  the  comprehensiveness  of  the  man  is  found  in 
the  character  of  that  vast  congregation  which  twice  every  Sunday 
faces  him  as  he  stands  on  the  Plymouth  platform. 

Behind  the  neat  little  desk,  made  of  olive-wood  from  Jerusa- 
lem, which  bears  the  name  of  that  ancient  city  carved  in  Hebrew 
characters,  there  is  a  focal  centre  in  which  are  collected  all  the 
sympathies  of  human  nature  ;  and  from  which  radiate  lines  of 
communication  that  bear  messages  of  peace  and  good- will  to 
every  name,  age,  class,  and  condition  known  to  humanity. 

In  connection  with  the  mind-breadth  and  heart-breadth  of  Mr. 
Beecher,  he  is  most  happy  in  possessing  that  combination  which 
the  great  Roman  poet  pronounced  the  necessary  conditions  of  a 
perfect  organization — the  "  mens  sa7ia  in  corpore  sano.''^ 

A  bad  digestion  does  not  contribute  to  great  clearness  of 
thought,  nor  does  the  bile  of  a  jaundiced  constitution  bring  out 
the  affectionate  qualities  of  a  man.  Now  Mr.  Beecher  stands 
before  the  world  as  a  living  demonstration  of  the  advantage  of  a 
conscientious  respect  paid  to  the  laws  of  the  body,  and  the  condi- 
tions which  secure  great    strength  and  the  continuance  of  ffood 


450  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

bealtli.  That  square,  massive,  compact  form  is  thrilled  in  every 
member  with  the  clear,  rushing  currents  of  Nature's  best  arterial 
blood,  and  is  electrified  by  Nature's  strongest  nervous  fluids.  Not 
only  is  such  a  body  no  hindrance  to  the  exercises  of  the  soul,  but 
it  is  the  most  competent  instrument  for  the  expression  of  all  the 
thoughts  and  emotions  of  the  higher  nature. 

Mr.  Beecher's  intuitive  faculty  is  another  important  element  of 
his  power.  Other  men  have  rapid  and  accurate  intuitions,  but 
they  are  either  limited  and  partial,  or  they  are  not  rendered 
effective  upon  other  minds,  because  they  are  not  supported  and 
illustrated  by  the  operations  of  reason  and  imagination.  But 
Mr.  Beecher,  with  his  remarkable  intuitions  in  respect  to  men,  as 
well  as  in  regard  to  truth,  duty,  and  all  that  is  necessary  and 
becoming  to  times  and  places,  can  invariably  summon  his  reason 
and  powers  of  illustration  (more  especially  the  latter)  to  set  forth 
his  intuitions  and  to  elaborate  his  conclusions„ 

Many  men  of  genius  fail  as  teachers  because  their  splendid 
intuitions  are  not  coupled  with  those  powers  which  are  necessary 
to  make  them  plain  to  the  average  minds  around  them. 

One  of  the  most  gifted  mathematicians  of  this  country 
endeavored,  for  a  few  years,  to  fill  a  professorship  in  a  univer- 
sity, but  did  not  prove  a  successful  teacher  ;  and  the  mortifica- 
tion experienced  by  his  sensitive  mind  was  unendurable.  His 
genius  strode  along  with  the  gait  of  a  giant,  while  the  capacities 
of  the  pupils  toiled  and  sweated  by  his  side,  like  infant  toddlers 
a<Tonizino-  to  keep  pace  with  a  champion  pedestrian.  He  found  it 
impossible  to  i-horten  his  steps  to  the  tread  of  average  minds,  and 
what  was  comprehended  by  him  at  a  glance,  he  took  for  granted 
could  be  grasped  by  the  powers  of  the  ordinary  pupil.  There- 
fore  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  failed  as  a  teacher. 

But  it  is  not  so  with  Mr.  Beecher  ;  he  possesses  that  unusual 
and  happy  combination  of  faculties  which  enable  him  to  compre- 
hend quickly,  anticipate  accurately,  and  fix  his  conclusions  upon 


HIS   DRAMATIC   STYLE.  451 

the  minds  of  the  masses  of  men.  Having  risen  to  a  mental 
eminence,  and  surveyed  the  expanded  horizon  commanded  by 
this  height,  he  is  able  and  willing  to  go  back,  and  use  his  feet  over 
a  toilsome  way  in  the  effort  to  conduct  the  struggling  multitude, 
who  cannot  soar  like  him  to  the  same  elevation.  These  gifts 
make  Mr.  Beecher  a  great  instructor.  Other  great  speakers  carry 
men  by  means  of  their  emotions  and  sentiments  ;  Mr.  Beecher 
never  does  this.  He  draws  men  onward  by  operations  upon  their 
conscience  and  heart,  upon  their  judgments,  and  their  sense  of 
the  beautiful,  the  true,  and  the  good,  and  never  by  appeals  to 
their  fear. 

His  rapid  and  accurate  intuition  serves  him  in  the  place  of 
prudence  ;  but  that  Mr.  Beecher  makes  no  mistakes  cannot  be 
asserted.  He  does,  however,  enjoy  a  quick  moving  sense  of  what 
is  fitting  for  the  hour,  the  place,  the  occasion,  the  men,  and  the 
appropriate  means  and  instrumentalities. 

The  dramatic  sense  enters  very  largely  into  his  constitution  as 
an  operative  force.  His  analytical  power  seldom  takes  the  direc 
tion  of  abstraction,  but  of  impersonation  of  qualities.  Where  he 
puts  a  truth  or  a  quality  before  his  hearers,  his  mind  instinctively 
sees  it  and  sets  it  forth  as  a  living,  moving  thing.  He  naturally 
adapts  everything  to  scenic  representation. 

"  I  never  hear,"  said  he  recently  to  the  writer,  "  of  the  experi- 
ence of  others  who  are  troubled,  or  struggling,  or  gropino-  their 
way,  that  their  condition  does  not  instantly  present  itself  as  a 
drama  before  my  eyes,  and  I  do  not  think  of  it,  but  I  see  it."  If 
his  feeling  be  such,  Mr.  Beecher  must  be  dramatic  in  his  style 
and  manner. 

He  is  not  theatrical  ;  but  that  he  could  have  made  an  eminent 
actor  no  one  can  doubt.  His  voice,  his  action,  his  look,  his 
whole  person  act  his  meaning,  and  his  entire  organization  becomes 
a  kaleidoscope  to  represent  his  ever-varying  mental  methods  and 
emotions. 


452  HENRY   WARD   BEECHEE. 

But  no  one  who  has  a  clear  conception  of  the  difference 
Tjetween  the  theatrical  and  dramatic,  and  wlio  is  fairly  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Beecher's  nature  and  style,  can  maintain  that  the  occu- 
pant of  Plymouth  pulpit  indulges  in  mere  theatrical  effects. 
Illustrations  and  comparisons,  metaphors  and  impersonations  are 
perfectly  natural  to  him,  and  characterize  his  manner  even  in 
private  conversation. 

Mr.  Beecher's  language  and  voice  should  not  be  passed  over,  as 
much  of  his  pulpit  power  is  based  on  them.  Other  influential 
speakers  use  their  voices  as  instruments,  but,  like  instruments, 
they  are  not  part  of  themselves. 

But  no  listener  can  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  fact  that  Mr. 
Beecher's  voice  is  eminently  peculiar  in  this  respect,  that,  as  an 
organ,  it  is  a  part  of  himself  ;  its  varying  quality  and  pitch,  its 
entire  range,  fits  his  meaning  and  shows  it  as  perfectly  as  the 
thin,  close  dress  of  an  athlete  hides  and  yet  reveals  the  muscles 
and  movements  of  the  body.  The  changes  of  his  voice  in  pitch, 
quality  and  inflection  are  often  so  sudden  and  yet  so  entirely 
unforced  and  natural,  that  the  hearer  expects  for  the  moment  to 
see  another  personage  in  the  drama  stepping  on  the  stage,  and 
essaying  to  take  up  another  part  ;  and  yet  it  is  no  trick  of  the 
ventriloquist,  nor  is  it  the  effect  of  a  theatrical  training.  What 
is  offensive  in  even  the  most  skilled  imitator  of  Mr.  Beecher  is 
most  beautiful  and  impressive  in  him. 

The  transitions  of  his  voice  are  so  accurate,  even  in  its  most 
rapid  and  in  its  nicest  distinctions,  that  no  hearer  can  mistake  the 
speaker's  real  meaning.  He  may  pass  from  a  quiet  demonstra- 
tion, or  hot  denunciation,  to  sincere  approval  or  latent  irony,  and 
the  inflections  and  qualities  of  his  voice  will  show  forth  the  mean- 
ing of  his  thoughts  with  entire  clearness  and  precision  in  detail. 

The  hearer  carries  away  the  conviction  that  the  intensest  sincer- 
ity must  be  behind  what  he  sees,  for  it  would  be  both  a  moral 
and  physical  impossibility  for  any  mortal  to  act  a  borrowed  part 


HIS   MAGNETISM.  453 

and  sustain  it  over  such  lengtli  of  time  and  variety  of  specifica- 
tion. 

The  words  of  the  English  tongue  are  to  him  as  the  forces  of  a 
mighty  array.  At  one  time,  at  his  bidding,  they  fall  into  line, 
dressed  in  glittering  nniforms  for  a  holiday  parade.  Again,  at 
the  voice  of  his  command  they  thunder,  and  roar,  and  storm  like 
the  opening  of  batteries  upon  a  besieged  fortress.  And  then  they 
flash  along  the  line  in  the  glitter  of  a  brilliant  bayonet-charge  ; 
while  again  they  leap  forward  in  the  whirl  and  roar  and  clatter  of 
a  cavalry  onset.  One  no  longer  wonders  that  there  is  a  divine 
philosophy  in  ordaining  the  living  voice  as  the  vehicle  for  convey- 
ing the  saving  truths  of  the  Gospel  to  the  world,  as  distinguished 
from  the  less  stirring  impressions  transmitted  by  the  printed  page. 

Mr.  Beecher  likewise  possesses,  in  a  high  degree,  that  inde- 
scribable power  which  men  choose  to  call  magnetic.  A  company 
feels  the  atmosphere  of  his  presence  as  soon  as  he  enters  the 
room.  We  have  stood  and  watched  the  brightening  counte- 
nances of  guests  or  spectators  when  it  was  whispered  from  one 
to  another  that  Mr.  Beecher  had  come  in.  We  have  seen  a 
lagging  meeting  electrified  by  his  an-ival,  after  its  proceedings 
were  half  over,  when  the  universal  sentiment  was,  "  Now,  for  the 
remainder  of  the  evening  we  shall  enjoy  what  we  anticipated." 
It  is  a  general  conviction  among  managers,  that  if  they  can  only 
induce  Mr.  Beecher  to  preside  they  will  have  a  successful  meet- 
ing, whatever  its  object  may  be. 

Intimately  interwoven  with  this  magnetic  force,  there  is  in  Mr. 
Beecher  an  endless  thread  of  golden  good-humor  and  flashing 
wit.  With  this  combination  of  powers  he  is  sure  not  only  to 
command  the  attention  of  his  audience,  but  to  carry  away  their 
admiration,  even  if  he  fails  to  compel  assent.  Probably  he  never 
stood  before  an  audience  which  he  did  not  master,  and  he  has, 
perhaps,  been  as  thoroughly  tested  in  this  regard  as  any  man 
living.     Other  men  may  always  preserve  their  self-possession,  but 


454  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

Mr.  Beeclier  never  loses  his  good-humor  and  his  ready  wit.  He 
is  more  than  self-poised  under  the  most  trying  circumstances. 

No  better  illustration  of  the  power  of  this  good-humor,  self- 
command,  and  ready  wit,  not  only  in  controlling,  but  actually  in 
winning  over  a  hostile  audience,  was  ever  more  clearly  displayed 
in  modern  times  than  when,  in  October,  1863,  Mr.  Beecher  found 
himself  upon  the  platform  of  Exeter  Hall,  in  London.  There  he 
stood  in  the  midst  of  a  storm  of  popular  indignation,  but  as  fast 
as  the  thunderbolts  were  hurled  against  him  they  were  conducted 
away  by  his  imperturbable  good-nature,  while,  backed  by 
conscious  power,  he  calmly  abided  his  time,  shooting  forth, 
when  the  storm  for  an  instant  lulled,  an  occasional  shaft  of  wit, 
and  again,  with  irresistible  kindliness,  giving  the  conscience  of 
the  audience  a  jog,  and  ever  appealing  to  the  Britisher's  national 
love  of  fair  play.  An  intimate  friend  of  Mr.  Beecher,  who  sat 
by  his  side  on  that  occasion  and  was  thrilled  by  the  grandeur  of 
the  contest,  declared  to  the  writer  that  it  was  the  most  sublime 
and  touching  scene  he  ever  witnessed.  He  could  see  the  mighty 
multitude  slowly  but  surely  abate  their  fury  and  yield  to  the  magic 
of  the  charmer  ;  until,  as  one  mass,  they  sat  thrilled  with  admira- 
tion at  the  feet  of  America's  greatest  orator.  The  change  of 
sentiment  in  that  hall  is  well  illustrated  by  the  old  lady  who 
began  by  shaking  her  umbrella  in  the  speaker's  face,  and  ended 
by  crowding  toward  him,  hoping  to  at  least  touch  the  hem  of  his 
garment  with  the  end  of  the  same  useful  article. 

Taste,  too,  enters  as  a  very  delicate  but  potent  ingredient  into 
the  constitution  of  Mr.  Beecher's  power.  He  is  a  most  sensitive 
critic  in  all  the  departments  of  the  fine  arts,  and  perhaps  Nature 
has  no  more  loving  nor  appreciative  admirer  than  Mr.  Beecher. 
He  is  skilled  in  gardening,  and  a  friend  informs  the  writer  that 
the  display  of  taste  in  gardening  that  one  notices  when  passing 
through  the  streets  of  the  beautiful  capitol  of  Indiana  owes  its 
inspiration  and  origin  very  largely  to    the    enthusiasm   of  Mr. 


HIS   STYLE  AND   PURPOSE.  455 

Beecher  when  a  resident  of  that  city.  He  is  extremely  suscepti- 
ble to  the  influence  of  music,  and  the  skilled  organist,  as  he 
deftly  passes  his  hand  over  the  key-board  of  his  instrument,  plays 
at  the  same  time  upon  the  sympathies  of  Mr.  Beecher's  soul.  He 
is  melted  to  tears  or  aroused  to  enthusiasm  in  response  to  the  vary- 
ing strains  of  harmony,  and  he  recently  declared  in  public  that  he 
loved  everything  in  music  from  a  jevvs-harp  to  David's  harp.  This 
full  circle  of  sympathy  with  the  wide  world  of  art  makes  Mr. 
Beecher  a  near  brother  to  a  vast  multitude  of  highly  organized 
souls,  and  through  them  he  exerts  a  mighty  influence  upon  man- 
kind.    Here,  too,  then,  is  illustrated  his  potency  as  a  social  force. 

Mr.  Beecher's  style  can  be  indicated  by  a  few  salient  points. 
His  style  is  himself.  It  is  a  perennial  stream,  drawing  its  supplies 
from  the  inexhaustible  fund  of  Nature's  own  providing.  It  is 
unconstrained,  free,  full,  flowing,  exuberant,  and  spontaneous. 
There  is  no  straining  after  effect  or  unnecessary  use  of  figures, 
but  the  varied  play  of  his  powers  bears  toward  some  great  central 
point  which  he  designs  to  enforce.  With  all  his  ideality  he  never 
ceases  to  teach  common-sense  ;  and  however  many  golden  threads 
he  may  weave  into  his  discourse,  one  always  feels  that  there  is 
solid  wear  in  it,  suitable  for  every-day  use. 

If  he  has  a  fault  of  style  it  is  in  the  overbalancing  of  logic  by 
his  rhetoric,  and  if  he  errs  in  action  it  is  on  the  side  of  over- char- 
ity. In  his  nature  the  affectionate  element  predominates,  and  his 
style  often  takes  its  complexion  more  from  his  heart  than  his 
head.  "Whatever  cold  critics  may  say,  the  world,  as  a  vast  court 
of  humanity,  has  already  passed  its  judgment  upon  this  great 
preacher's  style  and  purpose. 

Mr.  Beecher's  capacity  for  work  often  surprises  even  those  who 
know  him  best.  His  pulpit  duties  and  the  ministerial  cares  of  a 
great  congregation  would  prove  too  much  for  most  men  of  supe- 
rior strength  ;  but  these,  onerous  as  they  are,  have  been  for 
many  years  but  part  of  his  great  work.     The  Press,   the  Pulpit, 


456  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

and  the  Platform,  to  say  nothing  of  pastoral  work,  are  all  mighty 
levers  in  his  hands,  each  of  which  he  works  with  as  much  will  and 
energy  as  if  it  alone  engrossed  his  attention  and  absorbed  his  en- 
tire force. 

His  weekly  task  could  never  be  accomplished  if  he  did  not 
rigidly  observe  three  imperative  conditions.  He  regards  the  laws 
of  health,  he  works  systematically,  and  approaches  his  tasks 
with  promptitude. 

The  full,  ruddy  cheeks,  standing  out  in  boyish  plumpness, 
speak  of  a  full  supply  of  thoroughly  oxygenized  blood,  and  tell  of 
exuberant  vitality  well  maintained.  He  takes  great  interest  in 
horses,  and  believes  that  "  the  best  thing  for  the  inside  of  a  man 
is  the  outside  of  a  horse. "  Like  the  late  Dr.  Cutler,  he  knows 
that  the 'horse  does  more  to  keep  him  than  he  does  to  keep  the 
horse. 

There  are  certain  hours  when  he  will  see  strangers  and  entertain 
his  friends,  and  his  regulations  are  firmly  adhered  to.  In  his 
system  due  time  is  allotted  to  the  recreation  of  his  powers,  and 
this  he  religiously  observes.  "  Come  ye  apart  and  rest  awhile," 
is  as  much  a  part  of  his  creed  as,  "  and  to  every  man  his  work." 
He  believes  that  fishermen  who  never  stop  to  mend  their  nets  will 
soon  cease  entirely  to  catch  any  fish. 

His  promptitude  in  facing  his  tasks  is  one  of  his  noblest  quali- 
ties. The  willingness  to  spring  from  his  chair  and  go  forward  to 
open  the  door  to  the  last  duty  which  has  knocked,  is  not  the  least 
important  element  in  the  character  of  the  man  whom  we  believe  to 

be  at  this  hour  a  most  decided  social  force. 

9 


SILVEE,  WEDDING  ADDRESS. 


\ 


By  R.  S.  STORES,  D.D. 

Mr.  Beecher  introduced  the  Rev.  Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs,  pastor 
of  the  Church  of  the  Pilgrims,  in  the  following  terms  : 

Mr.  Beecher  said  :  "  Twenty-five  years  ago,  and  more,  among 
the  first,  and  almost  the  only  minister  that  I  met  or  visited  here 
was  my  beloved  brother  and  neighbor,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Storrs,  who 
is  present  with  us  to-night.  During  these  twenty-five  years  I 
have  never  received  from  him  one  word  that  was  not  spoken  in 
kindness,  and  I  have  never  heard  of  one  speech  or  syllable  from 
him  that  has  not  been  generous,  beyond  my  deserts.  And  though 
we  have  labored  in  parallel  fields  and  mingled  comparatively  but 
little,  one  of  the  treasures  that  I  have  laid  up,  and  that  I  cherish 
with  profound  satisfaction,  is  the  memory  of  an  unbroken  friend- 
ship with  him,  which  has  run  through  a  period  of  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  He  has  been  kind  enough  to  come  here  this  evening 
and  will  speak  a  few  words." 


ADDRESS  OF  DR.  STORRS. 

'*  J/y  Dear  Friends  of  Plymouth  Church  :  To  speak  frankly, 
I  feel  somewhat  embarrassed  this  evening  by  finding  myself 
involved,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  in  what  seems  to  be  a 
serious  difference  of  opinion  between  you,  the  people,  and  your 
pastor.  I  see  that  he  has  stated,  as  it  is  reported  in  the  public 
newspapers,  that  he  wishes  nothing  to  be  said,  in  any  of  these 
28 


458  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

meetings,  with  regard  to  himself.  Well,  turning  over  that 
thought,  it  seemed  to  me  that  perhaps  a  few  remarks  on  Recent 
Explorations  in  Central  Africa  might  be  deemed  suitable  to  the 
occasion  ;  but  I  was  afraid  that  these  might  bring  up  the  subject 
of  slavery  !  So,  after  lounging  mto  the  delightful  rooms  of  the 
Historical  Society,  and  trying  to  ascertain  from  our  friend,  Mr. 
Hannah,  what  were  the  latest  works  on  that  subject,  I  found  that 
I  must  take  something  more  remote,  and  thought  that  perhaps  a 
brief  discourse  on  the  probable  geography  of  the  planet  Saturn 
would  do  ;  but  then,  that  is  connected  with  '  Rings,'  you 
observe  !  And  how  on  earth  to  get  any  subject  that  would  not, 
somehow  or  other,  lead  up  to  and  terminate  in  Beecher,  to-night, 
was  a  puzzle  to  me.  Then  I  looked  over  the  letter  of  the 
Committee,  and  found  that,  according  to  my  recollection,  they 
particularly  desired  me  to  speak  of  Mr.  Beecher  as  a  Preacher. 
And  the  only  way  that  I  saw  out  of  it  was  this  :  As  I  understand 
it,  he  is  not  present  here  to-night  !  I  do  not  see  him  anywhere, 
and  T  do  not  hear  him  !  And  it  is  the  first  time  in  the  last 
twenty-five  years  of  my  experience  that  I  have  been  in  any  public 
assembly  where  he  has  been  present,  and  where  he  has  been 
invisible  and  inaudible  ! 

"  At  any  rate,  constructively  he  is  absent  !  You  remember, 
perhaps,  the  story  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Williams,  a  very  excellent 
but  somewhat  eccentric  minister  from  Rhode  Island,  who  was 
applied  to  by  Dr.  Emmons  to  write,  and  after  his  death  to  preach, 
his  funeral  sermon — which  he  did.  Dr.  Emmons  lived  a  long 
time,  and  when  he  was  ninety  years  of  age,  or  thereabouts,  he 
thought  it  might  be  judicious  and  safe  to  know  what  Brother 
Williams  had  written  about  him.  Accordingly  he  asked  him  to 
read  the  sermon  to  him.  Mr.  Williams  readily  consented  to  do 
it.  He  had  not  proceeded  far,  however,  with  the  reading, 
before  Dr.  Emmons  began  to  interrupt  with  criticisms  and  com- 
ments.    '  Stop,  stop,  sir  ! '  said  Mr.  Williams  ;  '  remember    that 


SILVER  WEDDING   ADDRESS.  461 

for  all  the  pur2)os€s  of  this  sermon  you  are  no  longer  a  living 
man  ! ' 

'*  Now,  Mr.  Beecher  is  a  very  living  man,  if  he  happens  to  he 
present  here — a  man  as  much  alive  as  any  one  could  be  expected 
to  be  on  the  fourth  day  of  such  a  celebration  as  this  ;  but,  at  the 
same  i\vaQ,  for  all  the  i^urposes  of  my  remarks,  he  is  not  present, 
and  will  not  know  anything  about  them,  unless  you  tell  him — 
which,  of  course,  you  won't  ! 

"  I  must  say  that  it  strikes  me  as  a  capital  idea  to  get  a  man  to 
talk  about  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching  who  has  never  had  many 
chances  to  hear  him.  I  have  always  had  a  profound  respect  for 
the  shrewdness  of  Plymouth  Church  ;  but  there  is  a  sagacity  in 
this  whicli  absolutely  approximates  genius  I  I  was  four  thousand 
miles  away  when  my  twenty-fifth  anniversary  came  around,  last 
year — off  among  the  Bohemians,  not  the  nevpspaper  gentlemen, 
who  are  sometimes  so  called,  and  whom  Mr.  Beecher  may  have 
seen  a  few  times  this  week,  but  in  what  the  Germans  call  the 
'  Kettle-land  '  of  Europe,  of  which  Prague,  on  the  Moldau,  is  the 
superb  and  charming  historic  capital  ;  so  that  my  people  had  no 
ehance  to  make  any  stir  over  that  occasion — though  I  have  no 
doubt  they  thought  of  it,  as  I  am  sure  I  did,  with  my  heart  full 
of  tenderness  and  of  tears.  But  if  ever  they  should  take  it  into 
their  heads  to  celebrate  any  other  anniversary  of  mine,  I  shall 
remember  this  neat  little  arrangement,  and  see  that  they  have 
somebody  to  talk  about  my  preaching  who  has  not  heard  much  of 
it.  Then  it  will  be  sure  to  be  an  impartial  and  an  unbiased  opin- 
ion that  is  given. 

"  But  it  is  rather  hard  upon  me  to  ask  me  to  perform  such  a 
service  !  It  is  very  much  like  asking  a  man  to  describe  Niagara 
Falls  who  has  never  seen  them  except  as  he  was  being  switched 
by,  over  the  Suspension  Bridge,  on  a  train  of  cars  ;  or  like  asking 
one  to  describe  the  magnificent  sweep  of  glaciers  around  the 
Gorner  Grat  at  Zermat — the  grandest  sight  in  all  Europe — when 


4:62  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

he  has  never  seen  it,  except  through  the  five-minute  chinks  of 
sunshine  on  a  cloudy  day. 

**  However,  I  am  not  quite  so  badly  off  as  that  ;  and  you  may 
not  be  quite  so  safe  as  you  thought  you  were  ;  for  I  have  heard 
Mr.  Beecher  a  few  times — enough  to  know,  at  any  rate,  that  the 
difference  between  hearing  his  sermons  preached  and  reading 
those  sermons,  as  printed  in  the  newspapers  or  in  volumes,  is 
very  much  like  the  difference  between  seeing  fireworks  go  off  by 
night,  and  looking  in  the  morning  at  the  blackened  frames  on 
which  those  fireworks  were  suspended. 

"  I  teraember  a  sermon  which  I  heard  him  preach  in  the  pulpit 
of  the  old  church  that  stood  here  aforetime.  It  was  not  exactly  a 
sermon  either  ;  it  was  an  Address  which  he  had  prepared  elabo- 
rately for  some  college  (my  impression  is  that  it  was  Hamilton 
College),  on  '  Sympathy. '  I  was  in  the  pulpit  with  him.  It  was 
admirable —lucid,  elegant,  powerful,  and  full  of  just  thought,  very 
justly  and  beautifully  stated  :  but  it  was  being  read. 

"  You  know  the  old  lady  out  West — wise  in  her  philosophy, 
if  not  learned  in  her  orthography — said  that  reading  was  not 
preaching  :  '  R-e-d  never  spelled  preach.^ 

"  Well,  as  he  read  on,  the  audience  were  getting  rather  dull 
and  listless,  and  attention  began  to  wander  pretty  widely.  He 
saw  it  ;  and,  being  quick  at  taking  a  hint  of  that  sort,  if  it  ever 
is  given  him,  he  began  to  read  a  little  more  rapidly,  and  now  and 
then  to  interject  some  bright  remark.  But  that  did  not  help  the 
matter.  Suddenly  he  paused,  and  looked  about  for  half  a 
minute,  and  then  there  came  from  his  lips  an  utterance  that  was 
as  if  a  wind-cloud  had  burst  in  the  house.  It  was  perfectly  over- 
whelming to  me  and  to  the  congregation  ;  but  it  waked  every- 
body up.  There  were  no  more  dull  faces  that  night  in  the 
congregation,  I  assure  you.  Everybody  looked  in  surprise,  and 
wonder,  and  startled  expectation  ;  and  then,  after  about  a 
minute,  his  voice  eased  off  into  a  pleasant  tone,  he  told  a  story, 


SILVER   WEDDING   ADDRESS.  4G3 

jumped  some  twenty-five  pages  of  his  manuscript,  caught  the 
thread  again,  and  the  audience  listened  with  rapt  attention,  while 
he  went  on  magnificently  to  the  end. 

"  I  remember  to  have  heard  him  once  at  Saugerties,  where  he 
and  I  had  gone  to  inaugurate  a  Congregational  church  movement 
among  some  Dutch  farmers  who  wanted  to  be  independent,  and 
who  had  asked  him  to  preach  for  them.  It  was  a  dehghtful 
afternoon  in  June,  and  the  slope  on  which  was  situated  the  little 
Methodist  meeting-house  where  we  met  was  white  with  apple- 
blossoms,  and  the  air  was  laden  with  the  perfume  of  them.  The 
congregation  was  not  large,  for  the  persons  who  were  interested 
in  the  movement  were  comparatively  few  ;  and  the  old  gentlemen 
(they  were  old  gentlemen,  most  of  them)  scattered  themselves 
about  in  the  corners  of  the  pews,  and  spread  their  red  bandanna 
handkerchiefs  over  their  heads  (I  can  see  them  now,  spotted  with 
their  orange  stars  and  diamonds),  to  listen  to  a  discourse  from 
this  new  Dominie,  of  whom  they  had  heard,  but  whom  they  had 
never  seen — evidently  supposing  that  as  he  came  from  the  city 
what  he  might  say  would  be  wholly  orthodox,  and  would  require 
no  special  attention  on  their  part.  The  text  from  which  he 
preached  on  that  occasion  was,  '  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them.'  He  spoke  of  the  sticks  with  magnificent  names,  which 
were  bought  in  the  nurseries,  and  which  they  set  out  with  the 
expectation  that  they  would  produce  an  abundance  of  fruit, 
charming  to  the  eye  and  delicious  to  the  taste — but  from  which 
came  small  gnarly  fruit,  and  only  a  little  of  that  ;  and  then  of 
other  trees  with  no  names  at  all,  and  a  meagre  promise,  which 
yielded  loads  of  luscious  fruit.  It  struck  me  then,  as  it  has  since, 
that  if  there  was  any  one  department  of  theology  in  which  he  was 
pre-eminent,  it  was  the  department  of  Pomology.  I  believe  that 
he  knows  as  much  about  apples  as  any  living  minister.  He  knew 
more  about  them  than  all  those  farmers  put  together.  The  names 
of   the  different  varieties,  which  were  utterly  unfaniiiliar  to  me, 


4G4  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

were  as  familiar  to  his  lips  as  the  names  of  his  children  ;  and 
what  he  didn't  know  about  them,  it  was  palpable  wasn't  worth 
knowing.  One  old  farmer  looked  up  at  the  new  minister,  and 
then  another  ;  and  then  they  looked  at  each  other,  as  something 
irresistibly  funny  came  out,  to  sec  if,  in  a  Methodist  meeting- 
house, on  a  Wednesday  afternoon,  it  might  not  be  allowable  to 
smile  a  little  bit.  After  a  while  they  did  smile,  whether  it  was 
allowable  or  not  ;  and  gradually  the  smile  rippled  and  ran  into 
laughter,  and  into  peals  of  it  ;  and  a  jollier  congregation  of 
independent  Dutchmen  was  never  seen,  I  venture  to  say,  m  all 
that  region.  There  was  a  power,  too,  in  the  practical  application 
of  the  truth,  which  took  hold  of  them  in  a  way  to  which  they 
had  never  been  accustomed. 

"  I  remember  hearing  him  preach  at  the  installation  of  one  of 
the  boys  of  this  church,  over  a  church  up  the  river.  I  watched 
him  carefully,  because  I  knew  that  about  one  third  of  his  sermon 
was  written,  and  that  the  other  two  thirds  were  unwritten,  and  I 
wanted  to  see  how  he  would  make  the  transition.  I  never  could 
manage  that  thing  at  all  myself.  He  read  on,  very  smoothly 
and  delightfully,  through  the  first  part  of  his  discourse  ;  and  it 
seemed  to  me  that  when  he  came  to  the  end  of  his  manuscript, 
he  must  make  a  plunge,  like  a  man  walking  off  from  the  pier  and 
stalling  on  the  water.  But  instead  of  that,  he  slid  into  the 
extemporaneous  part  of  his  discourse  as  easily  as  a  ship  glides 
down  the  ways  and  is  launched'  upon  the  water,  that  is  its  natural 
element.  I  was  delighted  with  the  smoothness  and  grace  of  the 
transition.  I  admired  the  facility  with  which  the  carefully 
prepared  introduction  and  the  extemporaneous  portion  were 
blended  together,  each  gaining  by  comparison  wdth  the  other. 

' '  I  remember  to  have  heard  him  in  this  church  many  years  ago 
— it  may  have  been  in  '58  ;  or  perhaps  it  was  as  early  as  '54 — on 
an  occasion  when  he  delivered  a  preparatory  lecture,  which 
literally  glowed  with  love  to  Christ.     I  never  shall  forget  it.      It 


SILVER    WEDDING    ADDRESS.  4G5 

made  an  impression  on  my  mind  and  heart  which  has  remained 
there  ever  since.  I  do  not  know  that  T  should  call  him  an 
especially  handsome  man — though  I  know  that  I  should  make  two 
thousand  personal  enemies  here  in  a  minute  if  I  intimated  any- 
thing to  the  contrary  ;  but  that  night  his  face  shone  like  the  face 
of  an  angel  ;  his  words  glowed  witli  pathos  and  power  ;  every 
heart  was  filled  with  their  impression  ;  and  a  spirit  of  love  and 
Joy  and  Christian  hope  reigned  supreme  here  ! 

"  So  you  see  I  have  heard  him  enough  to  know  something 
about  his  preaching. 

"  The  sources  of  that  power  in  him,  in  which,  during  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  you  have  been  all  the  while  rejoicing,  are  very 
deep  and  manifold.  It  used  to  amuse  and  provoke  me,  years 
ago,  when  men  would  speak  as  if  his  strength  lay  in  some  one 
thing  ;  in  his  voice,  perhaps,  or  in  his  gesture,  or  his  power  of 
illustration,  or  something  else.  Some  single  element,  it  was  now 
and  then  thought,  was  the  hair  of  this  Samson,  in  which  his 
strength  resided  ;  and  if  he  were  shorn  of  that  he  woulel  become 
like  other  men.  Nonsense  !  You  know,  as  well  as  I  do,  that  his 
power  comes  from  inany  sources.  It  is  like  a  rushing,  royal 
river,  which  has  its  birth-place  in  a  thousand  springs.  It  is  like 
a  magnificent  oak,  which  has  its  grand  uplift  of  trunk  and  stem, 
and  its  vast  sweep  of  branches,  by  reason  of  the  multitudinous 
roots  which  strike  down  deep,  and  spread  through  the  soil  in  every 
direction.  These  supply  the  mighty  timbers  for  the  battle-ship 
and  the  building  ! 

"  Now,  if  I  were  to  go,  as  I  shall  not,  into  a  thorough  analysis 
of  his  power  as  a  preacher,  I  should  occupy  your  time  for  a  great 
while  ;  but  there  are  certain  elements  of  that  power  which  are 
familiar  to  you,  and  which  redound,  not  to  his  praise  or  yours, 
but  to  the  praise  of  Him  who  made  him  what  he  is,  and  sent  him 
thither. 

"  First  among  these  elements,  I  should  put  a  thoroughly  vitalized 


46  G  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

mind  :  a  mind  so  vitalized  that  its  every  process  becomes  as  vital 
as  itself  ;  so  that  there  is  no  reproduction  of  past  processes  ;  no 
memorizing  of  what  has  previously  been  in  the  mind.  His  crea- 
tive faculties  are  in  play  all  the  time.  His  thoughts,  when  they 
are  uttered,  are  always  fresh  and  spontaneous,  as  if  they  had 
occurred  then  for  the  first  time  :  and  so  are  his  illustrations.  He 
repeats  his  illustrations,  of  course.  I  have  heard  him  repeat  some 
myself,  from  the  mechanic  arts,  from  household  life,  from 
growth  in  nature.  And  I  remember  a  lady's  saying  to  him,  some 
years  ago,  that  she  '  hoped  his  ship  would  come  in  before  long. ' 
She  had  heard  him  perhaps  three  times  in  the  course  of  a  year  ; 
and  it  so  happened  that  each  time  a  ship,  cither  as  leaving  port, 
or  as  sailing  on  the  sea,  or  as  entering  port,  had  got  into  the 
sermon,  and  she  wanted  that  ship  to  '  come  in  ! '  But  every  time 
it  was  as  fresh  to  his  vitalized  mind  as  though  it  had  never  occur- 
red to  it  before.  He  tells  a  story,  perhaps,  the  second  time  ;  but 
it  is  just  as  appropriate,  just  as  forcible,  just  as  full  of  vitality,  the 
second  time  as  it  was  the  first  ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  it 
would  be  to  the  end,  if  he  were  to  tell  it  two  hundred  times,  and 
probably  it  would  have  grown  considerably  better  by  that  time 
than  it  was  at  first  ! 

"  I  thinlc  I  should  put  second,  immense  common-sense  ;  a 
wonderfully  self-rectifying  judgment,  which  gives  sobriety  and 
soundness  to  all  his  main  processes  of  thought.  I  don't  know  but 
J  have  been  more  impressed  by  that  in  Mr.  Beecher  than  by  any 
other  one  element  of  strength  in  him.  I  have  seen  him  go  to  the 
edge  of  a  proposition  which  seemed  to  me  dangerous,  and  almost 
absurd,  again  and  again  ;  but  he  never  went  over.  He  always 
caught  himself  on  the  edge,  not  by  any  special  volition,  but  by  an 
instinctive  iinpulse  ;  by  the  law  of  a  nature  that  rectifies  mistakes 
almost  before  they  are  made.  If  he  has  taken  an  extravagant 
view  which  seems  about  to  divero;e  from  the  solid  o-round,  it  never 
fairly  and  finally  does  so.      He  reminds  me  of  sensations  Avhich  I 


SILVER  WEDDING   ADDRESS.  467 

have  had  a  hundred  times  in  crossing  the  ocean.  For  instance, 
coming  back  from  Europe  in  the  Russia,  during  a  heavy  blow,  we 
were  taking  the  waves  '  quartering.'  Down  would  go  the  star- 
board-side, and  up  would  go  the  larboard  ;  down  would  o-q  the 
stern,  and  up  would  go  the  bows  ;  then  the  great  ship  would  ride 
for  an  instant  balanced  upon  the  top  of  the  wave  ;  then,  as  she 
reeled  over,  the  bows  would  go  down  and  the  stern  would  go  up  ; 
the  larboard-side  would  go  down  and  the  starboard  up  ;  but  the 
grand  old  ship  would  always  swing  herself  to  a  level  in  the  valleys 
between  those  ridges  of  water.  She  was  perpetually  diving  or 
climbing,  but  balancing  herself  between,  and  always  swinging  to 
her  level  again.  And,  whatever  she  did,  she  was  forever  going 
on  toward  the  distant  harbor.  As  one  sea-sick  fellow-passenger  of 
mine  said,  '  Confound  it,  making  that  gigantic  figure  8  all  the 
time!  '  But  that  gigantic  figure  8  was  what  was  driving  us  on, 
through  storm  or  shine,  toward  Sandy  Hook. 

"  A  man  who  has  not  this  common-sense,  this  sound  self-rectify- 
ing judgment,  on  which  the  machinery  of  his  mind  is  to  work, 
flashes  out  very  soon.  We  have  had  any  number  of  examples  of 
that  sort  in  the  American  pulpit.  But  the  man  who  has  this 
common-sense,  and  this  instinctive  judgment,  has  two  of  the  cardi- 
nal elements  which  go  to  make  a  successful  minister.  There  is  an 
inherence  of  satisfying  power  in  him  ;  and  all  the  brilliancies 
which  he  then  has,  of  fancy  or  of  eloquence,  have  a  chance  to 
reveal  themselves,  and  never  weary  us  ;  any  more  than  do  the  red 
banners  of  the  cardinal  flower  by  the  mossy  brook-side,  or  the 
gorgeous  flame  of  the  golden-rod  amid  ferns  and  brake. 

"  I  should  put  next  to  this,  I  think,  his  quick  and  deep 
sympathy  with  men  ;  his  wonderful  intuitive  perception  of  moods 
of  mind,  which  makes  these  stand  out  before  him  like  a  proces- 
sion passing  in  the  street.  You  say,  '  This  is  genius.^  Of  course 
it  is  ;  but  it  is  the  genius  you  observe,  not  of  the  dramatist  nor  of 
the  poet  ;  it  is  the  genius  of  the  great  Preacher,  who  catches  his 


468  HENRY    WARD  BEECHER. 

suggestions,  his  inspiration  even,  from  the  eyes  or  the  faces,  shin- 
ing or  tearful,  of  the  people  before  him.  In  a  lower  sense,  in  a 
sense  how  infinitely  lower,  and  yet  in  a  true  sense,  we  may  say 
that  a  man  who  has  that  power  is  like  the  Master,  who  '  knew 
what  was  in  men  ;'  who  discerned  it  intuitively  ;  who  made  every 
precept,  every  promise,  every  instruction,  every  invitation,  drive 
at  that  precise  state  of  mind  which  he  saw  palpable,  and  present, 
and  personal,  before  him. 

"  Then,  still  further,  comes  that  mental  sensibility,  that 
emotional  responsiveness,  which  has  made  him  apt  and  ready  for 
every  occasion  ;  that  responsiveness  which  is  called  for  in  every 
minister,  but  which  has  been  called  upon  in  him  more  than  in  any 
other  man,  perhaps,  in  the  whole  American  pulpit,  during  the  last 
twenty-five  years.  He  has  never  been  found  wanting  in  readiness 
for  the  occasion,  no  matter  what  the  subject  may  have  been,  or 
what  the  scene.  His  mind  has  been  full  of  vigor,  and  has  kindled 
spontaneously,  by  collision  with  persons,  or  with  themes,  or  with 
circumstances,  whenever  the  occasion  has  been  presented. 

"  Some  men's  minds  are  like  a  dry  and  sterile  upland.  You 
must  sink  a  shaft,  twenty,  thirty,  forty,  fifty  feet,  before  you 
strike  water  ;  and  then  you  get  only  a  contemptible  trickle,  and 
must  pump  and  pull  for  half  an  hour  to  get  a  bucket  full.  But 
his  mind  has  been  like  a  springy  hill-side,  where  you  cannot 
strike  a  spade  without  starting  water.  Go  down  five  feet,  and  you 
find  a  rivulet  ;  ten  feet,  and  you  find  a  flood,  that  keeps  the 
meadows  green  and  rich  !  Such  a  man's  mind  is  never  dry. 
This  intimate  and  immediate  responsiveness  to,  and  sympathy 
with,  subjects  and  occasions,  is  an  immense  gift — charming  not 
only,  but  always  fertilizing,  and  always  refreshing. 

'*  Then  put  beyond  that  (for  certainly  it  properly  goes  beyond 
and  farther  off)  his  wonderful  animal  vigor,  his  fulness  of  bodily 
power  ;  his  voice,  which  can  thunder  and  whisper  alike  ;  his 
sympathy  with  Nature,  which  is  so  intimate  and  confidential  that 


SILVER  WEDDING   ADDRESS.  469 

she  tells  him  all  her  secrets,  and  supplies  him  with  continual 
images  ;  and,  above  all,  put  as  the  crown  upon  the  whole  that 
enthusiasm  for  Christ  to  which  he  has  himself  referred  this  even- 
ing, and  which  has  certainly  been  the  animating  power  in  his 
ministry — the  impression  upon  his  soul  that  he,  having  seen  the 
glory  of  the  Son  of  God,  has  been  set  here  to  reflect  that  glory 
upon  others  ;  to  inspire  their  minds  with  it  ;  to  touch  their 
hearts  with  it  ;  to  kindle  their  souls  with  it,  and  so  to  prepare 
them  for  the  heavenly  realm — put  all  these  together,  and  you 
have  some  of  the  elements  of  power  in  this  great  Preacher — not 
all  of  them,  but  some,  snatched  hurriedly  from  the  great  treasure- 
house.  There  you  have  a  few,  at  any  rate,  of  the  traits  and  forces 
of  him  whose  power  has  chained  you,  and  quickened  and  blessed 
you,  during  all  these  years. 

"  I  do  not  doubt  that  Mr.  Beecher  (and  I  have  more  than  once 
told  him  so)  has  demoralized  more  young  men  who  have  gone  into 
the  pulpit  than  any  other  man  who  ever  entered  it  in  America  ; 
because  the  boobies  have  supposed  that  his  power  lay  in  some  one 
thing — in  his  voice,  or  his  gesture,  or  his  manner  in  the  pulpit — 
and  that  all  that  any  man  had  to  do  to  be  a  ready-made  and 
unproved  Beecher  was  to  stand  in  the  pulpit,  with  nothing  in  his 
brains,  with  no  supreme  feeling  or  thought  to  utter,  and  yell  like 
fury,  and  storm  about  the  platform,  then  subsiding  suddenly  into 
a  sweet  and  gentle  whisper  !  You  and  I  know,  my  friends,  that 
he  has  had  inexhaustible  powers  back  of  everything  of  that  kind  ; 
and  that  his  power  has  been  so  constant  and  so  vast,  only  because 
the  sources  of  it  have  been  so  manifold  and  so  deep. 

"  Such  are  some  of  the  elements  that  have  combined  in  him, 
and  combined  to  make  him  the  foremost  preacher  in  the  American 
pulpit.  That  is  a  great  thing  to  say,  because  there  have  been  a 
great  many  brilliant  men  in  the  American  pulpit.  There  have 
been  many  brilliant  men  in  these  Brooklyn  pulpits  since  he  and  I 
were  settled  here.     When  he  came  to  Brooklyn,  Dr.  Stone  was 


470  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

preaching  in  Clirist  Churcli — a  man  rich  in  thought,  powerful  in 
argument,  impressive  and  fervent  in  application.  Dr.  Vinton, 
who  was  lately  carried  to  New  York  for  his  burial,  was  in 
Emmanuel  Church,  with  a  stately  and  resonant  eloquence,  often 
very  commanding,  swaying  and  stirring  his  hearers  nobly.  Dr. 
Cox  was  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  with  a  mind  like  an 
auroral  heaven,  reminding  one,  as  Gough  said,  of  nothing  so  much 
as  the  meteors  on  a  November  night  ;  but  reminding  me,  I  think, 
rather  of  the  ocean,  in  its  mobile  grace,  extent,  and  power, 
capping  its  fiercest  waves  with  foam,  and  covered  with  phospho- 
rescence. Dr.  Spencer  was  in  the  Second  Presbyterian  Church — a 
man  who  held  his  congregation  with  a  grasp  which  almost  no 
other  man  has  equalled,  which  none  surpasses.  He  was  strong  in 
argument,  vigorous  in  expression,  with  a  certain  profound  poetic 
element  in  him  which  was  not  recognized  always,  but  which  gave 
to  some  of  his  discourses  a  majesty,  a  sublimity,  a  weird  solem- 
nity which  I  have  never  seen  surpassed.  Dr.  Dwight  was  in 
the  First  Dutch  Church — kindly  and  courteous  in  manner  beyond 
most  men  whom  I  have  known  ;  careful  in  thought,  chaste, 
temperate,  and  strong  in  expression  ;  learned  in  theology,  largely 
read  in  the  best  literature.  He  was  a  man  of  fine  natural  abilities, 
refined  sensibilities,  and  great  dignity  and  sweetness  in  the  pulpit. 
Dr.  Bethune  came  afterward — that  man  of  infinite  wit,  vivacity, 
and  variety  of  mind,  in  whom  pathos  and  humor  were  intimately 
blended,  the  charm  of  the  social  circle,  who  had  a  marvellous 
power  of  eloquence,  as  you  well  know,  on  both  pulpit  and  plat- 
form ;  whom  I  lamented  when  he  left,  and  wept  for  when  he 
died,  as  I  had  loved,  admired,  confided  in  him  while  he  was  here. 
Dr.  Welsh  was  at  the  same  time  in  the  Baptist  Church  ;  Dr. 
Kenneday,  Dr.  Nadal,  and  Dr.  Sewall  in  Ihe  Methodist.  I 
cannot  name  them  all.  You  remember  them.  A  brilliant  circle 
of  ministers  they  were,  of  whom  any  city  might  be  proud  ;  in 
whose   presence    we    all   rejoiced.     But  there  has   been  no  one 


SILVER   WEDDING    ADDRESS.  471 

who  has  been  a  preacher  for  the  city,  a  preacher  for  the  country, 
a  preacher  for  the  world,  as  has  been  that  preacher  who  has  stood 
on  this  platform. 

"I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  I  think  he  has  been  a  perfect 
preacher.  He  has  not  been.  I  think  that  if  he  had  taken  my 
advice,  on  a  number  of  points,  it  would  have  been  a  great  deal 
better  for  him.  I  have  no  doubt  that  in  the  mere  matter  of  voice 
he  has  spent  enough  superfluous  force,  during  these  twenty-five 
years,  to  make  two  perfectly  respectable  thunder-storms  !  And 
for  myself,  I  would  rather  have  my  illustrations  come  in  bouquets 
sometimes  than  to  have  them  always  come  by  bushels  !  But  he 
has  been  a  great  preacher,  as  you  have  felt,  and  as  you  bear  wit- 
ness. He  has  been,  in  the  true  sense,  and  in  the  largest  meaning, 
a  preacher  for  thie  World. 

"  Then,  when  you  unite  with  these  other  things  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  as  elements  of  his  power,  a  somewhat  vehement  and 
combative  nature,  that  always  gets  quickened  and  fired  by  oppo- 
sition, as  you  have  found,  and  that  never  is  so  self-possessed,  so 
serene,  and  so  victorious,  as  when  the  clamor  is  loudest  around 
him  and  the  fight  is  fiercest — and  if  you  add  very  fixed  and  posi- 
tive ideas  on  all  the  great  ethical,  social,  and  public  questions  of 
the  time — there  you  have  the  champion  Reform-fighter  of  the  last 
twenty-five  years.  I  never  saw  a  man  that  it  was  more  dangerous, 
on  the  whole,  to  arouse  by  opposing  him — a  thing  which,  there- 
fore, I  never  do. 

"  I  remember  once  hearing  him  speak  at  an  anti-slavery  meet- 
ing at  the  Tabernacle  in  1850  (many  of  you  were  not  old  enough 
to  be  there  then,  and  I  am  afraid  that  a  good  many  of  you  who 
were  old  enough  were  not  there  ;  but  he  was  there,  and  I  was). 
In  his  address  he  had  been  describing  some  atrocity  at  the  South, 
and  at  the  end  he  said,  '  Is  there  anybody  worse  than  that  in  Sing 
Sing  ?  '  when,  from  away  up  in  the  highest  gallery,  came  a  shrill, 
piping  voice,  saying,  '  Yes  1 '     *  I  give  it  up  ;  yon  know  !  you've 


4T2  HENRY   WARD    BEECIIER. 

been  there  ! '  flashed  ont  instantly  from  Mr.  Beecher.  It  took  the 
audience  about  half  a  minute  to  find  out  that  it  wasn't  a  prear- 
ranged colloquy  ;  but  when  they  did  understand  that  this  was 
his  instant,  spontaneous  reply,  I  tell  you  they  nearly  took  the  roof 
off  from  the  pillars  of  the  building  ! 

"  "When  men  have  anywhere  undertaken  to  put  him  down  by 
violence,  they  have  found  that  they  had  more  than  their  match. 

"  You,  perhaps,  remember  the  story  of  the  Englishman,  at 
Naples,  saying  to  a  Yankee,  in  a  slightly  arrogant  way,  as  English- 
men can  sometimes,  pointing  to  the  red  flames  that  were  stream- 
ing up  from  Vesuvius  into  the  heavens,  '  Have  you  anything  like 
that  over  in  your  country  ?  '  and  how  the  Yankee  replied,  '  V/ell, 
no  !  Not  exactly  like  that  ;  but  we've  got  a  waterfall  over  in 
our  country  that  would  put  that  thing  out  in  five  minutes  !  ' 

"  Well,  when  Mr.  Beecher  was  in  England,  they  made 
volcanoes  around  him,  on  no  small  scale,  at  Liverpool,  at 
Manchester,  and  the  other  places.  But  that  fluent  thought  with- 
in, and  that  fluent  eloquence  on  the  lips,  put  out  the  volcanoes  ; 
or,  if  they  did  not  put  them  out,  they  made  the  fiie  shoot  the 
other  way,  till  the  ground  became  too  hot  for  the  English  Govern- 
ment to  stand  on,  if  it  would  permit  its  evident  sympathy  for  the 
Southern  Confederacy  to  be  formulated  into  law. 

"  I  have  also  seen  Mr.  Bcechor  in  other  relations,  where  you 
have  not.  I  have  seen  him  in  councils  and  deliberative  assem- 
blies, where,  when  the  business  "became  intricate  and  entangled, 
and  things  were  greatly  mixed,  there  came  in  his  clear,  incisive 
sagacity,  his  persuasive  eloquence,  and  his  resolute  will,  and 
pulled  things  straight  with  marvellous  suddenness.  He  has  some- 
times differed  from  me,  T  am  sorry  to  say,  at  such  times,  and  it 
doesn't,  of  conrse,  become  me  to  say  who  has  been  in  the  right 
in  such  case.  I  can  only  say  that,  in  my  mature  judgment,  when- 
ever he  and  I  have  been  on  opposite  sides,  he  has  been  always  in 
the  wrons:  ! 


SILVER   WEDDING   ADDRESS.  473 

"  So  he  has  stood  before  you,  and  so  he  has  stood  before  this 
whole  community,  for  all  these  years, 

"  It  does  not  seem  possible,  as  I  look  back,  that  it  is  twenty- 
five  years  since  I,  who  had  then  been  here  but  a  single  year,  was 
commissioned  by  the  Council  to  give  him  the  Right  Hand  of 
Fellowship.  I  wish  to  say  a  word  about  that  Council,  concerning 
which  statements  have  been  made  which  are  either  exaggerated  or 
in  nowise  founded  in  fact.  There  were  old  men  in  that  Council 
who  were  accustomed  to  a  theological  terminology  which  Mr. 
Beecher  could  not  use,  or  declined  to  use.  They  tried,  no  doubt, 
and  without  success,  to  get  him  to  employ  the  same  terms  which 
they  preferred.  But  after  the  examination  in  theology  was  over, 
and  the  examination  in  religious  experience  was  entered  upon, 
there  was  not  the  least  shadow  of  a  doubt  on  the  minds  of  the 
Council,  uor,  I  think,  of  any  one  of  its  members,  that  he  was 
sound  in  the  substance  of  the  faith,  and  that  he  knew,  by 
personal  communion,  the  presence  and  glory  of  the  Son  of  God. 
And  by  a  most  hearty  and  absolutely  unanimous  vote,  they  placed 
him  in  the  pulpit  to  which  you  had  called  him.  There  was  entiie 
unanimity,  and  there  was  entire  cordiality,  in  that  vote  which 
delegated  to  me  the  privilege  and  the  honor  of  giving  him  here, 
on  behalf  of  the  churches,  the  Right  Hand  of  Fellowship. 

"  Every  pastor  in  the  city  who  was  here  when  I  came  has  passed 
away.  Not  one  remains.  Many  have  gone  into  the  heavens. 
All  have  gone  from  their  pulpits  here  ;  and  many  of  those  pulpits 
have  three  or  four  times  changed  occupants  since.  Of  those  who 
were  pastors  when  he  and  I  stood  together  in  that  evening's 
service,  only  one  remains — the  Rev.  Mr.  Sarles,  who  last  week 
celebrated  his  twenty-fifth  anniversary. 

*'  I  remember  that  it  used  to  be  said  to  me  when  I  was  first 
here,  and  when  Congregationalism  was  a  wholly  new  thing  in  the 
city,  that  it  '  wasn't  a  safe  system  for  ministers  ! '  Thev  needed, 
for  self-protection,   to   be  in   an  Episcopal   pulpit,    or  to  have  a 


474  HENRY    WARD  BEECHER. 

session  or  a  consistory  behind  them.  It's  rather  an  odd  com' 
mentary  on  that  notion  that  we  who  have  been  here  longest,  over 
most  harmonious  churches,  are  all  Congregationalists — for  the 
Baptists,  you  know,  are  excellent  Congregationalists,  only,  as  Dr. 
Bethune  used  to  say,  '  a  little  shrunk  in  the  wetting.'  I  suppose 
there  have  been  different  reasons  for  it. 

"  Mr.  Beecher  has  said,  in  those  wonderfully  vital  and  vivify- 
ing lectures  of  his  at  New  Haven,  that  short  pastorates  are  largely 
to  be  attributed  to  the  grace  of  God  !  I  shall  not  dispute  with 
him,  because  he  does  not  bear  disputation  very  well  in  public  ; 
and,  though  he  is  constructively  absent,  I  should  fear  that  he 
might  prove  to  be  personally  and  somewhat  pugnaciously  present 
if  I  contradicted  him.  But  I  must  say,  that  I  think  the  duration 
of  our  long  pastorates  has  been  largely  attributable  to  the  grace  of 
God  ;  to  that  grace  in  him,  in  his  patience  with  yen  ;  to  that 
grace  in  my  people,  in  their  patience  with  me  ! 

"  At  any  rate,  we  have  stood  side  by  side  in  all  these  years  ; 
and  they  have  been  vvonderful  and  eventful  years. 

"  '  Our  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord, 

When  He  loosed  the  fateful  lightnings  of  His  terrible  swift  sword, 
And  His  truth  went  marching  on  ! ' 

"  "We  have  differed  many  times,  but  two  men  so  unlike  never 
stood  side  by  side  with  each  other,  for  so  long  a  time,  in  more  per- 
fect harmony  ;  without  a  jealousy  or  a  jar  !  Though  we  have 
differed  in  opinion,  we  have  never  differed  in  feeling.  We  have 
walked  to  the  graves  of  friends  in  company.  AVe  have  sat  at  the 
table  of  the  Lord  in  company.  He  knows,  as  he  has  said,  that 
when  other  voices  were  loud  and  fierce  in  hostility  to  him,  mine 
never  joined  them.  When  other  pens  wrote  his  name,  dropping 
gall  and  venom  as  they  wrote  it,  ray  pen  never  touched  the  paper 
except  in  honor  and  admiration  of  him.  And  /  know  that  when- 
ever I  have  wanted  counsel  or  courage  given  me  from  others,  he 


SILVER  WEDDING   ADDRESS.  475 

has   always   been    ready,    from    the    overflowing    surpkis   of   his 
surcharged  mind,  to  give  them  to  me. 

"So  we  have  stood  side  by  side — blessed  be  God — in  no  spirit 
but  of  fraternal  love,  for  that  long  space  of  twenty-five  years, 
which  began  with  the  Right  Hand  of  Fellowship  then,  and  closes 
before  you  here  to-night. 

"  I  am  not  here,  my  friends,  to  repeat  the  service  which  then 
I  performed.     It  would  be  superfluous.     When  I  think  of  the 
great  assemblies  that  have  surged  and  thronged  around  this  plat- 
form ;   when  I  think  of  the  influences  that  have  gone  out  from 
this  pulpit  into  all  the  earth — I  feel  that  less  than  almost  any  other 
man  on  earth  does  he  need  the  assurance  of  fellowship  from  any 
but  the  Son  of  God  !     But  I  am  here  to-night  for  another  and  a 
different  service  !     On  behalf  of  you  who  tarry,  and  of  those  who 
liave  ascended  from  this  congregation  ;  on  behalf  o:  Christians  of 
every  name  throughout  our  city,  who  have  had  such  joy  and  pride 
in  him,    and  the  name  of  whose  town  has,  by  him,   been  made 
famous  in  the  earth  ;  on  behalf  of  all  our  churches  now  growino- 
to  be  an  army  ;  on  behalf  of  those  in  every  part  of  our  land  who 
have  never  seen  his  face  or  heard  his  voice,  but  who  have  read  and 
loved  his  sermons,  and  been  quickened  and  blessed  by  them  ;   on 
behalf  of  the  great  multitudes  who  have  gone  up  from  every  land 
which  his  sermons  have  reached — never  having  touched  his  hand 
on  earth,  but  waiting  to  greet  him  by-and-by  ;  I  am  here  to-nioht 
(taking  Mr.  Beecher  by  the  hand)  to  give  him  the  Right  Hand  of 
Congratulation,    on   the   closing   of  this   twenty-fifth  year  of  his 
ministry,  and  to  say  :  God  be  praised  for  all  the  work  that  you 
have  done  here  !     God  be  praised  for  the  geccrcus  gifts  which 
He  has  showered  upon  you,  and  the  generous  use  which  you  have 
made  of  them,  here  and  elsewhere,  and  everywhere  in  the  land  ! 
God  give  you  many  happy  and  glorious  years  of  work  and  joy  still 
to  come  in  your  ministry  on  earth  !     May  your  soul,  as  the  years 

go   on,    be   whitened  more  and   more,    in  the  radiance   of  God's 
2i^ 


476  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

light,  and  in  the  sunshine  of  His  love  !  And,  when  the  end 
conies — as  it  will — may  the  gates  of  pearl  swing  inward  for  your 
entrance,  before  the  hands  of  those  who  have  gone  up  before  you, 
and  who  now  wait  to  welcome  you  thither  !  and  then  may  there 
open  to  you  that  vast  and  bright  Eternity — all  vivid  with  God's 
love — in  which  an  instant  viclon  shall  be  perfect  joy,  and  an 
immortal  labor  shall  bo  to  you  immortal  rest  !" 

"  This  magnificent  concluding  passage,"  said  the  Brooklyn 
Union  of  the  next  day,  "  was  uttered  with  an  eloquence  that 
defies  description.  At  its  conclusion,  Mr.  Beecher,  with  tears, 
and  trembling  from  head  to  foot,  arose,  and  placing  his  hand  on 
Dr.  Stons'  shoulder,  kissed  him  upon  the  cheek.  The  congrega- 
tion sat  for  a  moment  breathless  and  enraptured  with  this  simple 
and  beautiful  action.  Then  there  broke  from  them  such  a  burst  of 
applause  as  never  before  was  heard  in  an  ecclesiastical  edifice. 
There  was  not  a  dry  eye  in  the  house." 

Mr.  Beecher,  his  voice  tremulous  with  emotion,  attempted  to 
introduce  the  Rev.  Dr.  Biidington,  but  could  only  remark  * 

"  I  meant  to  have  said  something  about  Dr.  Budington,  but  I 
cannot  talk  ;  I  can  only  say  that  he  will  speak." 


Dr.  Budington,  at  all  times  a  welcome  speaker,  with  quick 
sympathy  felt  that  the  climax-  of  the  evening  had  been  reached, 
and  with  rare  good  taste  responded  :  "  You  will  excuse  me 
from  speaking  to-night,  I  am  sure  ;  I  am  satisfied  that  this  service 
is  concluded  as  only  God's  Spirit  could  conclude  it,  and  as  your 
hearts,  beating  with  mine,  would  have  it  concluded." 

Mr.  Beecher  :  "  We  will  sing  then,  *  Jesus,  Lover  of  my 
Soul,'  the  sweetest  hymn  that  ever  was  written  in  the  English 
language,  the  deepest,  the  most  imploring,  and  the  most  comfort- 
ing." 


Part  III. 


CHARACTERISTIC  UTTERANCES  OF  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 


THEOLOGICAL,      _       -       .       -       .       Statement  op  Beliep. 
SPIRITUAL,        ...       -       How  to  Become  a  Christiak. 

POLITICAL. (Speech  at  LoNDOir. 

'  I  Farewell  Speech 

»         DESCRIPTIVE, The  Alps. 

PHILOSOPHICAL    ....    Evolution  and  Revolutioic. 

AGRICULTURAL,        .       .       .       .     i  Political  Economy  op 
'  }  THE  Apple. 

HUMOROUS      ....  (Modern  Conveniences  and 

'  *  "       *     I        First-class  Houses. 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 


PART    III. 


THEOLOGICAL. 
STATEMENT     OF     BELIEF. 

The  theological  statement  reported  below  was  given  by  Mr. 
Beecher  at  the  regular  Fall  meeting  of  the  New  York  and 
Brooklyn  Association  of  ministers  and  churches.  The  following 
description  of  the  scene  is  from  the  pen  of  an  eye-witness,  whose 
account  we  quote  from  the  columns  of  the  Christian  Union, 

The  New  York  and  Brooklyn  Association  of  ministers  and 
churches  held  its  regular  meeting  in  the  Park  Church,  Brooklyn, 
on  Tuesday,  October  11th,  and  opened  with  the  usual  attendance 
of  about  fifty  ministers  and  delegates,  with  a  small  sprinkling  of 
auditors,  who  had  been  led  to  expect  a  morning  of  dry  business, 
followed  by  a  still  dryer  exegesis  on  the  Greek  text  of  a  portion 
of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew.  It  was  understood  that  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  would  read  a  paper  on  "  Spiritual  Barbarism  "  in  the 
afternoon,  and  that  the  real  interest  of  the  day  would  lie  in  the 
public  addresses  of  the  evening.  But  a  whisper  ran  around  among 
the  small  audience  that  Mr.  Beecher  had  asked  leave  to  come  first 
on  the  list,  and  that  he  intended  to  make  a  statement  of  his  theo- 
logical views.  So,  when  Mr.  Beecher  took  a  chair  and  seated 
himself  on  the  platform,  every  eye  was  fixed  upon  him  with  vivid 
interest,  while  the  ministers,  especially,  listened  with  critical 
ears,  carefully  weighing  every  word  of  his  rapid  utterances. 

Seldom  has  such  a  little  gathering  enjoyed  such  a  flood  of 
unpremeditated  eloquence.  Beginning  in  a  conversational  tone, 
and  never  raising  his  voice  very  high,  the  speaker  soon  passed 
over  the  negative  side  of  his  subject  and  began  to  set  forth  his 
affirmative  beliefs.  As  these  gradually  led  him  to  recall  his  own 
personal  and  inward  experiences,  he  seemed  to  lose  consciousness 
of  his  audience  ;  his  voice,  although  clear  and  distinct,  became 
low  and  gentle  ;  he  was  carried  away  by  one  of  those  very  inspira- 
tions which  he  was  describing  ;  and  when  he  spoke  of  the  revela- 
tion of  Christ  to  himself,  as  one  who  loved  men  because  they 
needed  love,  his  face  underwent  a  marvellous  change  ;  it  seemed 


480  .  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

transparent  with  a  radiant  light,  like  a  sunset  glow  on  the  Alps, 
while  rapid  and  instantaneous  changes  of  expression  passed  over 
it,  such  as  can  only  be  compared  to  heat-lightning  silently  play- 
ing over  the  golden  clouds  of  a  summer  evening.  The  one  re- 
porter became  exhausted  before  the  subject  of  the  Atonement  was 
reached  ;  and  so  many  questions  were  put  by  members  of  the 
Association  that  it  was  impossible  to  record  them  all.  Whole 
sentences  and  many  words  were  therefore  lost  from  the  report ; 
and  it  is  unintelligible.  For  this  reason  the  speaker  has  rewritten 
this  part  of  his  address  ;  and,  as  he  himself  said,  he  never  can 
reproduce  his  own  language.  In  substance,  it  is  the  same  as  his 
spoken  declarations  m  reply  to  questions.  In  every  other  respect 
the  report  which  follows  is  a  photograph  of  what  Mr.  Beecher 
actually  said  to  the  Association. 

T  PROPOSE  this  morning,  brethren,  to  meet  the  loose,  general 
representations  and  misrepresentations  in  respect  to  what  I  believe 
and  teach,  and  I  propose  to  do  it  preliminary  to  withdrawing 
from  the  membership  of  this  association.  Let  me  say,  in  regard 
to  the  subject  assigned  me  viz.,  "Spiritual  Barbarism,"  I  was 
appointed  to  open  the  discussion  without  my  knowledge.  It  is 
not  a  subject  of  my  choosing.  I  cannot  exactly  trace  out  how  the 
appointment  came.  I  have  no  predilection  for  any  such  subject. 
I  do  not  know  that  I  ever  used  that  phrase.  Very  likely  I  have, 
but  I  never  keep  an  inventory  of  the  phrases  I  use.  I  did  not 
even  know  what  it  meant.  I  wrote,  however,  to  the  member  who 
knows  everything,  the  clerk,  Mr.  Thwing,  who  also  professed 
ignorance,  but  supposed  that  it  was  designed  to  include  my  views 
of  original  sin. 

WHAT    IS    SPIRITUAL    BARBARISM  ? 

I  propose  first  to  say  a  few  words  on  this  subject  assigned  to 
me.  There  are  a  good  many  views  held  that  might  be  described 
properly  by  the  phrase  ' '  spiritual  barbarism. ' '  By  this  I  mean 
the  best  views  that  men  in  an  early  age  and  imperfect  state  of 
understanding  can  give  of  spiritual  phenomena. 
I  do  not  use  the  phrase  "  barbaric"  as  a  term  of  reproach,  but 
simply  to  designate  actions,  beliefs,  or  customs  which  had  their 
origin  in  an  undeveloped  race.  They  are  infantine  conceptions, 
the  best  that  men  could  frame,  exceedingly  imperfect,  though 
having  a  root  of  truth  in  them. 

1.  The  first  element  of  spiritual  barbarism  which  I  shall  men- 


THEOLOGICAL.  481 

tion  is  derived  from  the  Greeks.  It  may  be  called  the  doctrine  of 
divine  impassivity  or  the  notion  that  s.  perfect  being  cannot  suffer! 
It  seems  impossible  that  any  one  who  reads  the  Bible  should  have 
misconceived  its  teaching.  But  the  Greek  idea  of  perfection  was 
born  of  the  artist.  President  Woolsey  is  reported  to  have  said 
that  the  Greek  race  were  destitute  of  true  conscience  ;  that  there 
was  not  enough  moral  sense  to  hold  together  any  government  for 
any  length  of  time.  It  is  not  stiange  that  those  whose  conception 
of  a  hero  was  one  perfectly  beautiful,  always  young,  wise,  strong, 
perfectly  serene  and  happy,  superior  to  all  the  troubles  and  vexa- 
tions which  befall  mortals,  should  have  deemed  it  necessary  to  a 
lofty  view  of  Deity  that  He  should  be  insusceptible  to  pain.  But 
the  whole  Bible  is  like  a  magnificent  chant  of  the  Divine  emotion, 
running  through  every  possible  modification  of  feeling.  He  sor- 
rows, pities,  loves,  longs,  strives,  joys,  abhors,  relents.  God's 
nature  is  full  and  deep  as  the  ocean,  and  pulses  on  every  shore 
around  the  world  and  through  all  time,  every  inflection  of  feeling 
which  springs  from  purity,  rectitude,  and  benevolence.  That  God 
suffers  from  weakness  as  men  do,  from  mistakes,  from  vv-rong,  or 
blind  animal  suffering,  no  one  imagines.  It  is  the  suffering  of 
sympathy  with  his  creatures,  for  their  and  not  his  sins.  It  is  a 
father's  and  a  mother's  emotion  in  behalf  of  those  loved.  This  is 
the  very  life  and  root  of  Christ's  atoning  love.  One  who  created 
the  world,  peopled  it  with  weak  and  imperfect  beings,  unfolding 
them  through  ages,  beholding  all  the  strife,  error,  mistake, 
sorrow,  which  befell  everything  human  born  into  this  life,  and  yet 
was  so  serenely  happy  in  himself  that  he  calmly  beheld  the  whole 
long  and  universal  tragedy  with  quiet  indifference,  may  do  for  a 
Greek  pagan  god,  but  cannot  for  a  moment  be  that  idea  of  God 
which  throbs  with  mighty  heart  through  every  page  of  the  Bible. 
2.  Right  over  against  this  unworthy  conception  is  the  nature  ox 
a  being  clothed  with  passion  the  most  tempestuous — anger,  hatred, 
jealousy,  rage,  blood-loving,  proud  and  revengeful.  It  is  a  con- 
ception borrowed  from  the  animal  passions  of  rude  warrior 
heroes.  In  the  poetry  of  sacred  Scripture  figures  and  pictures  are 
used  which  are  drawn  from  human  passions  for  the  sake  of  pierc- 
ing the  rude  moral  sense  of  rude  men  with  a  sense  of  the  intensity 
of  Divine  indignation  against  all  unrighteousness.  In  like  manner 
God  is  a  sun,  a  tower,  a  shield   and  buckler,  a  lion,  an   eagle,  a 


482  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

heaven  full  of  storms  and  thunder,  a  warrior,  a  rock,  etc.     No 
one  ever  held  that  these  were  literal. 

3.  A  third  instance  of  spiritual  barbarism  is  metaphysical,  and 
may  be  called  the  barbaric  represi  ntation  of  God,  as  spiritually 
self-contemplative  and  self-conceited.  It  cannot  be  tolerated  that 
God  should  make  that  a  sovereign  virtue  in  Himself  which  is 
denounced  as  the  essence  of  sin  in  His  creatures.  The  worship 
of  one' s  self  is  not  made  amiable  because  one  is  a  king.  The  nobler 
the  being  the  less  does  he  revolve  around  his  own  centre.  Humil- 
ity is  demanded  in  men  not  on  account  of  their  imperfections,  but 
because  a  benevolent  being  is  centrifugal  and  not  centripetal. 
God  lives  for  His  universe  and  not  for  Himself.  His  thought  and 
purposes  go  forth  and  travel  outward  evermore.  It  is  only  in  the 
self-renunciation  of  supreme  love  that  God  can  be  said  to  glorify 
Himself.      His  glory  is  a  mother's  glory  in  her  children. 

It  has  been  thought  that  God  admires  Himself,  does  everything 
ihat  He  does  for  His  own  glory,  and  that  he  lives  and  rules  for 
the  purpose  of  glorifying  Himself.  That  He  is  the  most  perfect 
Mud  the  most  beautiful  and  the  most  glorious  of  beings  is  true  ; 
but  it  is  because  Ho  does  not  live  for  Himself,  because  He  intro- 
verts Himself  in  the  form  of  every  conceivable  power  for  the 
benefit  of  others.  And  any  conception  that  makes  it  right  for 
God  to  do  things  simply  because  He  is  self-conscious  of  being  so 
beautiful  and  so  peifect  I  legard  as  one  of  the  worst  forms  of 
spiritual  barbarism. 

4,  The  chapters  of  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  con- 
cerning decrees,  election,  reprobation,  as  connected  with  the  fall 
in  Adam,  I  regard  as  extraordinary  specimens  of  spiritual  barbar- 
ism. 

The  views  therein  given  of  the  divine  character  and  procedure 
are  wholly  irreconcilable  with  the  manifestation  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus.  They  stand  over  against  the  conception  of  God  as  shining 
from  the  face  of  Christ  as  the  Gorgon  head  against  an  Apollo,  in 
the  Grecian  mythology.  I  hold  it  to  be  a  monster,  and  not  a 
master  of  love  that  is  there  portrayed.  I  reject  it  with  an  inten- 
sity of  feeling  that  touches  the  very  soul  of  honor  and  fidelity  to 
God.  Much  of  the  violence  sometimes  manifested  in  my  preach- 
ing springs  from  indignation  that  I  feel  when  the  loveliness,  the 
beauty,  the  glory  of  God  in  Christ  is  trampled  under  foot  by  such 


THEOLOGICAL.  483 

spiritual  barbarism.  It  stands  in  the  way  of  thousands.  It  has 
turned  more  feet  into  the  barren  ways  of  infidelity  than  any  other 
single  cause. 

5.  A  fifth  spiritual  barbarism  is  the  widely  held  and  taught 
dogma  that  man  has  no  power,  either  natural  or  moral,  to  obey 
the  commands  of  God.  Could  despotism  the  most  stupid  and 
tyrannic  invent  anything  worse  to  defile  the  justice  and  honor  of 
God  than  to  create  an  endless  procession  of  myriad  subjects  who 
cannot  understand  spiritual  truth,  and  yet  were  to  be  punished  for 
it  ;  who  had  neither  natural  ability  nor  moral  to  fulfil  commands 
laid  upon  them,  and  yet  were  to  be  eternally  damned  for  not 
doing  it  ?  Made  with  no  eyes,  yet  guilty  of  not  seeing  ;  with  no 
feet,  yet  guilty  of  not  walking  ;  with  no  will,  yet  damned  for  not 
choosing  ! 

Such  a  scandalous  caricature  of  a  God  of  justice  and  love  can 
be  adequately  described  as  an  atrocious  spiritual  barbaristn. 

6.  And  so  also  must  be  the  teaching  that  Adam  stood  for  the 
whole  human  family,  in  such  a  sense  that  the  race  was  revolution- 
ized on  account  of  his  guilt,  and  that  God  has  continued  creating 
uncountable  millions  of  beings,  through  thousands  of  years,  whose 
inevitable  destiny  was  eternal  damnation  !  This  is  spiritual  bar- 
i)arism  run  mad  ! 

It  is  the  more  extraordinary  that  men  should  have  believed  it, 
that  the  whole  Old  Testament  is  silent  upon  it.  No  venerable 
lawgiver  like  Moses,  no  judge  like  Samuel,  no  sweet  singer  like 
David,  no  flaming  prophet  like  Isaiah  has  uttered  a  word  of  this 
blasphemy.  He  that  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light  utters 
not  a  syllable  of  i1.  The  whole  theory  stands  upon  th(>  fifth  chap- 
ter of  Romans,  and  is  again  a  falsifier  of  that  chapter.  No  an- 
swer has  ever  been  made  to  Dr.  Edward  Beecher's  arguments,  in 
the  "  Conflict  of  Ages,"  demonstrating  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
fall  of  man  in  Adam  had  no  foothold  in  Paul's  writings. 

7.  Finally,  the  mediaeval  representation  of  hell  and  the  pimish- 
ment  of  the  wicked  is  a  spiritual  barbarism  worthy  of  having  been 
invented  in  just  such  a  place,  and  by  just  such  demons  as  have 
been  invented  for  it.  That  there  will  be  pain  and  penalty  in 
another  world  for  those  who  have  perverted  their  natures  in  this 
world  I  fully  believe.  But  those  gross  representations  of  the 
Roman  mind,  especially  those  exquisite  and  infernal  descriptions 


484  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

of  the  material  and  sensuous  torments  of  the  lost,  rolling  in  waves 
of  fire,  writhing  in  the  folds  of  serpents,  gnawed  by  demons, 
pierced  by  fiery  forks,  clawed,  dragged,  tossed,  roasted  by  an 
infinity  of  disgusting  devils  in  an  eternity  of  torments,  increasing 
with  every  age,  the  capacity  to  suffer  increasing  likewise,  till  the 
whole  infinite  round  of  imaginable  space  is  filled  with  the  smoke 
and  shrieks  of  their  torments.  Such  a  dogma  is  an  insult  to  rea- 
son, to  the  moral  sense  of  mankind,  and  if  it  shall  be  ascribed  to 
God,  it  is  a  blasphemy  that  would  justify  the  annihilation  of  its 
propagators.  Yet  this  has  been  represented  in  art,  as  in  Michael 
Angelo's  "  Last  Judgment,"  and  yet  more  abominably  and  inex- 
cusably by  Cornelius  in  our  own  day,  whose  "  Judgment  "  is 
coarser,  cruder,  and  wickeder,  because  he  lived  in  an  age  of  light 
and  better  knowledge  of  God.  These  hideous  and  remorseless 
barbarisms  are  not  dead.  I  have  two  books  in  i.iv  possession,  of 
recent  composition,  authorized  by  Catholic  prelates,  in  which 
these  sensuous  and  sensual  ideas  of  future  punishment  are  drawn 
out  with  an  inconceivable  and  infernal  detail,  which  cannot  but 
amaze  a  sober  and  rational  man  by  the  filthy  fertility  of  a  rabid 
imagination.  Compared  to  the  solemn  simplicity  of  Christ's 
warnings  of  future  doom  they  are  as  a  thousand-fold  midnight 
compared  with  the  rising  of  the  all-revealing  sun. 

I  have  thus  fulfilled  as  far  as  I  think  necessary  the  request  of 
the  association  to  speak  on  spiritual  barbarism. 

WHAT    HE    DOES    BELIEVE. 

I  now  turn  to  other  matters.  The  subject  assigned  me  gave 
me  oppoitunity  to  state  my  views  negatively.  In  view  of  the 
step  which  I  am  about  to  take  I  desire  to  give  affirmatively  what 
I  do  believe  and  teach  ;  and  what  I  have  taught  all  through  my 
ministry — lasting  now  more  than  forty-five  years.  I  am  working 
on  the  same  lines  and  in  the  same  direction,  with  only  such 
difference  as  comes  from  larger  experience  and  more  knowledge. 

That  my  teaching  has  been  widely  misunderstood,  that  many 
who  do  not  attend  my  ministrations  are  honestly  perplexed,  and 
that  there  has  been  blown  about  a  world  of  misrepresentation, 
some  saying  thati  believed  innothing,  was  an  infidel,  a  Unitarian,  a 
Materialist,  a  man  without  logic,  inconsistent,  sometimes  teaching 
one  thing  and  at  others  its  opposite,  you  all  know  as  well  as  I  do. 


THEOLOGICAL.  485 

A  word  may  be  permitted  as  to  the  sources  of  this  misrepre- 
sentation. I  have  nothing  to  hide.  I  never  set  myself  up  as  a 
systematic  theologian.  I  have  for  a  long  time  believed  that  a  time 
would  come  when  theology  would  stand  high  among  the  sciences, 
but  that  as  yet  the  knowledge  did  not  exist  which  is  necessary  to 
build  it  upon  ;  that  much  light  was  to  be  revealed  from  science  as 
to  the  divine  method  of  creation  ;  that,  above  all,  that  terra  in- 
cognita, the  human  mind,  must  be  explored,  not  alone  for  its  own 
relations  to  theology,  but  for  the  far  more  important  reason,  that 
only  through  the  knowledge  of  mind  as  it  is  revealed  to  us  among 
men.  can  we  find  the  elements  necessary  for  a  right  conception  of 
divine  attributes  and  dispositions. 

HIS    MODE    OF    PREACHING. 

But  even  if  I  had  that  equipment  which  it  has  been  widely  denied 
that  I  have,  if  I  had  the  scholarship  and  that  logic  which  is  so 
much  praised  and  so  little  employed  by  better  men  than  I  am,  I 
should  still  not  have  set  myself  up  as  the  architect  of  abstract 
ideas,  the  builder  of  philosophic  systems.  My  aim  has  been  to 
inspire  men  to  a  higher  and  nobler  Christian  life.  I  have  been  a 
fisher  of  men.  For  this  end  I  have  employed  much  that  belongs 
to  reigning  theology  ;  I  have  also  rejected  much.  I  never  set  up 
as  a  representative  of  orthodoxy  ;  I  never  set  up  as  a  representa- 
tive of  Congregationalism.  I  am  not  an  authority  anywhere — 
never  wanted  to  be,  never  dreamed  of  being.  But  I  have  had 
working  lines,  based  on  my  own  belief,  and  1  have  never  hidden 
them  ;  and  though  I  have  never  formulated  them  so  as  to  make 
out  a  "  Beecher  system"  of  theology,  yet  I  think  it  meet  and 
right,  for  my  sake  and  yours,  that  I  should  state  them  now  and 
subject  myself  to  any  questions  that  any  of  my  brethren  choose  to 
propound  to  me  in  regard  to  them.  And  let  me  say,  first,  that 
this  wide  cloudiness  and  misconception  is  partly  my  fault  and 
partly  not.  I  am  what  I  am  by  the  grace  of  God,  thi'ough  my 
father  and  mother.  I  have  my  own  peculiar  temperament  ;  I  have 
my  own  method  of  preaching,  and  my  method  and  temperament 
necessitate  errors.  I  am  not  worthy  to  be  related  in  the  hundred 
thousandth  degree  to  those  more  happy  men  who  never  make  a 
mistake  in  the  pulpit.  I  make  a  great  many.  I  am  impetuous. 
I  am  intense  at  times  on  subjects  that  deeply  move  me.     I  feel  as 


486  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

thougli  all  the  ocean  were  not  strong  enough  to  be  the  power  "be- 
hind my  words,  nor  all  the  thunders  that  were  in  the  heavens, 
and  it  is  of  necessity  that  such  a  nature  as  that  should  give  such 
intensity  at  times  to  parts  of  doctrine  as  to  exaggerate  them  when 
you  come  to  bring  them  into  connection  with  a  more  rounded  out 
and  balanced  view,  I  know  it — I  know  it  as  well  as  you  do.  I 
would  not  do  it  if  I  could  help  it  ;  but  there  are  times  when  it  is 
not  I  that  is  talking,  when  I  am  caught  up  and  carrried  away  so 
that  I  know  not  whether  I  am  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body, 
when  I  think  things  in  the  pulpit  that  I  never  could  think  in  the 
study,  and  when  I  have  feelings  that  are  so  far  different  from  any 
that  belong  to  the  lower  or  normal  condition  that  I  neither  can 
regulate  them  nor  understand  them.  I  see  things  and  I  hear 
sounds,  and  seem,  if  not  in  the  seventh  heaven,  yet  in  a  condition 
that  leads  me  to  understand  what  Paul  said — that  he  heard  things 
which  it  was  not  possible  for  a  man  to  utter.  I  am  acting  imder 
such  a  temperament  as  that.  I  have  got  to  use  it,  or  not  preach 
at  all.  I  know  very  well  I  do  not  give  crystalline  views  nor  thor- 
oughly  guarded  views — there  is  often  an  error  on  this  side  and  an 
error  on  that  ;  and  I  cannot  stop  to  correct  them.  A  man  might 
run  around  like  a  kitten  after  its  tail,  all  his  life,  if  he  were  going 
around  explaining  all  his  expressions  and  all  the  things  he  had 
written.  Let  them  go.  They  will  correct  themselves.  The 
average  and  general  influence  of  a  man's  teaching  will  be  more 
mighty  than  any  single  misconception,  or  misapprehension  through 
misconception. 

THE    REPORTERS. 

Then,  too,  yon  must  bear  in  mind  that  great  as  is  the  useful- 
ness— and  I  bear  willing  testimony  to  the  great  usefulness  of  the 
ubiquitous  body  of  reporters — they  are  not  all  apostolic  in  theol- 
ogy, they  are  not  Platos  in  philosophy,  they  are  not  all  the  most 
eminent  disciples  of  the  school  of  metaphysics,  and  they  are  set  to 
do  that  which  not  one  man  of  genius  even  in  ten  thousand  can  do 
— the  rarest  thing  in  the  world — to  put  a  discourse  of  one  whole 
hour  into  a  reading  space  of  five  minutes.  To  do  that  is  one  of 
the  supremest  works  of  intellectual  genius.  But  they  are  sent  to 
the  churches  as  well  as  to  other  meetings,  and  they  are  expected 
to  make  a  report  that  folks  will  read,  and  they  catch  here  and  they 


THEOLOGICAL.  487 

catch  there  shining  passages,  grotesque  ones,  or  some  that  raise  a 
little  laughter.  They  go  over  to  the  oflBce  and  the  night  editor 
says  :  "  I  want  a  quarter  of  a  column  of  Beecher. "  "  Well,  but 
I  have  got  a  whole  column."  "  Cut  it  out,  cut  it  out  !"  and  they 
cut  it  here  and  they  cut  it  there,  and  keep  in  things  that  they 
think  will  attract  attention,  and  that  is  the  report  of  my  sermon. 
Well,  I  do  not  blame  them  ;  but  I  tell  you  what  I  do  blame.  I 
blame  the  want  of  honor  in  ministers  and  editors  who  live  within 
an  hour's  walk  or  an  hour's  postage  of  my  house,  and  who  could 
write  to  me  and  say  :  "  I  see  in  the  papers  this  morning  such  and 
such  things  are  reported  as  having  been  said  by  you.  I  wish  to 
know  whether  that  is  a  correct  representation  of  your  views." 
Not  they  !  They  sit  down  and  write  a  long  critique  and  send  it  to 
the  Congregationalist  or  the  Advance  or  somewhere  else,  based  on 
my  views.  If  it  is  worth  my  while,  and  I  turn  around  and  say, 
*'  I  was  misrepresented  ;  I  didn't  say  so,"  they  will  say,  "  Oh, 
he  is  backing  down  as  usual."  So  then,  for  more  than  twenty- 
five  years,  there  is  not  a  man  on  the  globe  that  has  been  reported 
so  much  as  I  have  been  in  my  private  meetings,  in  my  street  con- 
versations, on  the  platforms  of  pubhc  meetings,  and  so  steadily  in 
the  pulpit,  a  great  many  times  admirably,  many  times  less  admi- 
rably, and  sometimes  abominably.  This  has  been  going  on  week 
after  week  and  year  after  year.  Do  you  suppose  I  could  follow 
up  all  such  things  and  rectify  them  ?  I  never  revise  my  own  ser- 
mons. I  prepare  them  as  best  I  may.  I  preach  them,  and  you 
might  just  as  well  look  for  the  sparks  that  were  in  your  fire  yester- 
day as  to  look  to  me  for  the  contents  of  my  last  sermon  when 
once  it  has  gone  forth.  If  I  were  to  attempt  to  revise  it  the  only 
thing  it  would  do  would  be  to  set  me  going  on  a  new  one.  I 
never  could  correct  them.  They  go  without  correction  in  the 
public  press,  and  have  been  for  twenty-five  years  laid  before  the 
public  in  fragments  in  a  hundred  papers — all  my  thoughts  and  my 
feelings.  And  yet,  at  this  day,  men  say  I  am  holding  back  the 
truth  and  do  not  let  folks  know  what  I  mean.  If  there  ever  was 
any  man  who  has  been  especially  frank  to  state  everything  he  was 
prepared  to  say,  it  is  I.  But  a  man  who  runs  to  speech  before 
his  thoughts  and  beliefs  are  settled  is  a  fool.  Every  man  has  be- 
liefs rising  as  nebulous  stars  rise  ;  and  not  until  they  have  ascend- 
ed far  above  the  vapors  of  the  earth  and  are  high  advanced,  and 


488  HENRY   WARD   BEEL'HER. 

he  has  had  an  opportunity  to  study  them,  should  he  represent 
them  to  others.  I  have  held  a  great  many  things  in  abeyance 
until  they  were  rightly  settled  in  my  mind.  Then  I  preached 
them  ;  and  people  say  :  "  Oh  !  he  has  got  a  great  deal  behind  ; 
he  has  another  idea  yet  ;  and  he  doesn't  preach  it."  Thank  God, 
no  ;  I'm  not  quite  such  a  fool. 

HIS  PHILOSOPHY. 

Then  I  have  an  underlying,  mental  philosophy  which  difftis 
from  that  generally  held  by  my  brethren  and  which  was  held  by 
those  that  framed  what  might  be  called  modern  aspects  of  theol- 
ogy ;  and  I  think  I  am  preaching  consistently  along  the  lines  of 
my  mental  and  scientific  philosophy.  I  hear  men  say,  "Why, 
the  man  says  one  thing  at  one  time  and  another  thing  at  another 
time  ;  there's  no  sort  of  logical  connection  about  him."  I  am 
not  ambitious  to  wear  a  crown  of  thorns  of  logic  ;  but  one  thing 
I  say,  that  a  man  may  be  inconsistent  when  judged  by  a  philoso- 
phy that  he  does  not  hold  and  you  do,  and  perfectly  consistent 
with  himself  when  judged  by  his  owi  system  of  philosophy.  This 
leads  me  to  say  that  early  in  my  college  life,  under  the  influence 
of  Dr.  Spurzhcim,  I  embraced  the  system  of  phrenology.  It  was 
nascent,  and  it  has  been  nascent  ever  since.  Biology,  physiology 
are  throwing  greater  and  greater  light  on  the  subject  of  the  human 
mind  every  year.  I  never  undertook  to  preach  by  any  system  of 
philosophy  based  on  phrenology,  but  the  whole  nomenclature  of 
mental  phenomena  was  so  vague  it  had  no  individuality  in  it,  no 
power  of  individualizing  ;  it  generalizes  all  the  way  through  ; 
while  phrenology  brought  into  view  as  distinct  qualities,  com- 
bativeness,  self-esteem,  pride,  the  love  of  approbation,  the  love  of 
praise,  conscience,  hope,  reason,  that  is,  casual  and  analogical  rea- 
son. It  gave  definite  names,  so  that  one  could  read  a  man  ;  just 
as  you  can  by  taking  type  spell  out  a  word,  so  by  taking  the 
different  faculties  you  get  to  know  the  man.  This  working  appa 
ratus  of  phrenology  I  embraced.  I  analyzed  essays  by  it.  1 
could  say  to  myself  what  sprang  from  that  organ,  here  conscience 
is  at  work,  here  self-esteem,  and  so  on.  I  do  not  undertake  to  say 
it  was  the  most  accurate,  but  I  do  say  it  gave  definiteness,  it  gave 
a  man  an  insight  into  his  fellow-man.  It  told  him  just  where  to 
strike  and  just  what  to  strike  with,  and  it  was  altogether  a  more 


THEOLOGICAL.  489 

practical,  personal,  and  useable  system  than  any  of  the  metaphysi- 
cal systems  that  have  been  in  vogue.  Then,  beside  that,  I  early 
studied  science  with  enthusiasm.  I  was  a  pupil  of  Professor 
Hitchcock  at  Amheist  College.  I  was  the  first  two  years  a  dull 
scholar  because  I  was  studying  literature,  history,  and  belles  lettres, 
but  when  I  came  to  my  junior  and  senior  years  I  bent  myself  to 
mental  philosophy  and  scientific  studies,  and  I  have  kept  along 
the  line  of  the  front  of  scientific  investigation  ever  since,  and  these 
two  elements  have  underlaid  and  been  very  potent  to  form  my 
theological  statements.  When,  therefore,  I  am  judged  I  ask  to  be 
judged  by  my  philosophy,  and  not  by  a  very  different  one  which 
my  critic  may  hold.  The  result  has  been  unfavorable  in  many 
cases.  That  is  to  say,  unfavorable  to  my  reputation  in  the  com- 
munity. It  set  good  men  a  great  many  times  apart  by  misunder- 
standing. It  has  caused  grief  to  some  men  that  were  closely  con- 
nected with  me.  I  know  I  have  their  confidence  as  to  my  personal 
piety  and  as  to  my  general  conduct,  but  they  fear  lam  straying  so 
far  from  the  good  old  sound  way  thart  it  is  a  matter  of  mourning. 
I  do  not  think  so,  I  think  I  am  coming  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
good  old  sound  way.  I  think  my  views  conform  to  Scripture  a 
great  deal  more  than  those  in  which  I  was  originally  educated.  In 
regard  to  scientific  investigation,  I  see  the  day  coming  when  one  of 
the  most  powerful  arguments  for  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  will 
be  that  it  laid  itself  light  along  on  the  assumption  of  truths  that 
were  unknown  at  the  time  they  were  written  and  by  the  person  by 
whom  they  were  written.  It  is  a  remedial  book.  It  lays  itself 
along  the  line  of  human  development  and  human  want  in  a  manner 
that  no  man  can  account  for  except  by  superintending  Providence. 
My  scientific  and  philosophical  views  lead  me  to  a  deeper  and  a 
deeper  faith  in  the  word  of  God  ;  but  I  shall  speak  of  that  in 
detail. 

HIS    PERSONAL    EXPERIENCE. 

Now,  it  may  be  permitted  to  me,  in  view  of  withdrawing  from 
the  association — as  I  shall — to  tnak^  a  statement  of  my  views  some- 
what in  extenso.  I  do  it  as  a  brother  to  brethren.  In  the  first 
place,  let  me  say  that  my  early  religious  experience  has  colored  all 
my  life.  I  was  sympathetic  by  nature,  I  was  loving,  I  was 
mercurial,  I  was  versatile,  I   was  imaginative.     I  was  not  a  poet 


490  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

executively,  but  sympHthetically  I  was  in  Pinion  with  the  whole 
universal  life  and  beauty  of  God's  world  and  with  all  human  life. 
My  earliest  religious  training  was  at  home.  My  father's  public 
teaching  may  be  called  alleviated  Calvinism.  Even  under  that  the 
iron  entered  my  soul.  There  were  days  and  weeks  in  which  the 
pall  of  death  over  the  universe  could  not  have  made  it  darker  to 
my  eyes  than  those  in  which  I  thought,  "  If  you  are  elected  you 
will  be  saved,  and  if  you  are  not  elected  you  will  be  damned,  and 
there  is  no  hope  for  you."  I  wanted  to  be  a  Christian.  I  went 
about  longing  for  God  as  a  lamb  bleating  longs  for  its  mother's 
udder,  and  I  stood  imprisoned  behind  those  iron  bars  :  "  It  is  all 
decreed.  It  is  all  fixed.  If  jou  are  elected  you  will  be  saved 
anyhow^if  you  are  not  elected  you  will  perish."  AVhile  in  that 
state  and  growing  constantly  and  warmly  in  sympathy  with  my 
father,  in  taking  sides  with  orthodoxy  that  was  in  battle  in  Boston 
with  Unitarianism,  I  learned  of  him  all  the  theology  that  was  cur- 
rent at  that  time.  In  the  quarrels  also  between  Andover  and  East 
Windsor  and  New  Haven  and  Princeton — I  was  at  home  in  all 
these  distinctions.  I  got  the  doctrines  just  like  a  row  of  pins  on 
a  paper  of  pins.  I  knew  them  as  a  soldier  knew  his  weapons.  I 
could  get  them  in  battle  array.  I  went  from  my  college  life  im- 
mediately to  the  West  and  there  I  fell  into  another  fuliginous 
Christian  atmosphere  when  the  old  school  and  the  new  school 
Presbyterians  were  wrangling,  and  the  church  was  split,  and  split 
on  the  rock  of  slavery,  and  my  father  was  tried  for  believing  that 
a  man  could  obey  the  commandments  of  God,  and  Dr.  Wilson 
was  contending  against  him  in  church  courts,  that  men  had  no 
ability,  either  moral  or  physical,  to  obey  God,  and  the  line  of  divis- 
ion ran  all  through  the  State,  and  there  was  that  tremendous  whirl 
of  old  school  theology,  old  Calvinism  and  new  Calvinism,  and  by 
the  time  I  got  away  from  the  theological  seminary  I  was  so  sick — ■ 
no  tongue  can  tell  how  sick  I  was  of  the  whole  medley.  How  1 
despised  and  hated  this  abyss  of  whirling  controversies  that  seemed 
to  me  to  be  filled  with  all  manner  of  evil  things,  with  everything 
indeed  but  Christ.  And  then  on  one  memorable  day,  whose 
almost  every  cloud  I  remember,  whose  high  sun  and  glowing 
firmament  and  waving  trees  are  vivid  yet,  there  rose  before  me  as 
if  an  angel  bad  descended,  a  revelation  of  Christ  as  being  God,  be- 
cause He  knew  how  to  love  a  sinner  ;  not  that  He  would  love  me 


THEOLOGICAL.  491 

when  I  was  true  and  perfect,  but  because  I  was  so  wicked  that  I 
should  die  if  He  did  not  give  Himself  to  me,  and  so  inconstant  that 
I  never  should  be  steadfast,  as  if  He  were  saying  to  me  :  "  Because 
you  are  sinful  I  am  yours. ' '  Before  that  thought  of  a  God  who 
sat  in  the  centre  and  seat  of  power,  that  He  might  bring  glory  and 
restoration  to  everything  that  needed  Him,  I  bowed  down  in  my 
soul,  and  from  that  hour  to  this  it  has  been  my  very  life  to  love 
and  to  serve  the  all  helping  and  pitiful  God. 

HIS    EARLY    PREACHING. 

Well,  that  determined  me  to  preach,  for  I  had  before  about  made 
up  my  mind  I  should  go  into  some  other  profession.  And  when 
I  began  to  preach  it  was  said  of  me,  "Why  go  to  hear  him? 
He's  a  smart  young  man,  but  he  plays  that  one  chord  all  the  time. 
All  he  has  got  to  say  is  about  Christ."  That  was  pretty  much  all 
I  had  when  I  went  into  the  ministry.  I  went  away  from  the  city. 
I  had  the  misfortune  to  be  my  father's  son,  and,  therefore,  every 
body  was  comparing  me  with  Lyman  Beecher.  My  first  preach- 
ing was  in  a  hall  over  the  river  in  Kentucky,  and  there  I  preached 
several  weeks.  Then  came  a  woman  from  Lawrcnceberg,  saying 
there  was  a  Presbyterian  Church  there  with  nineteen  members, 
women,  and  one  man.  She  called  me  to  the  pastorate  of  that 
church.  She  was  its  trustee  and  deacon  and  treasurer.  I  have 
good  reason  to  believe  in  woman's  rights.  There  I  had  a  ministry 
of  two  years.  I  preached  some  theology,  I  had  just  come  out  of 
the  seminary,  and  retained  some  portions  of  systematic  theology, 
which  I  used  when  I  had  nothing  else,  and  as  a  man  chops  straw 
and  mixes  it  with  Indian  meal  in  order  to  distend  the  stomach  of 
the  ox  that  eats  it,  so  I  chopped  a  little  of  the  regular  orthodox 
theology,  that  I  might  sprinkle  it  with  the  meal  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  But  my  horizon  grew  larger  and  larger  in  that  one  idea 
of  Christ.  It  seems  to  me  that  first  I  saw  Christ  as  the  Star  of 
Bethlehem,  but  afterward  He  seemed  to  expand  and  I  saw  about 
a  quarter  of  the  horizon  filled  with  His  light,  and  through  years  it 
came  around  so  that  I  saw  about  one-half  in  that  light  ;  and  it  was 
not  until  after  I  had  gone  through  two  or  three  revivals  of  religion 
that,  when  I  looked  around,  He  was  all  and  in  all.  And  my 
whole  ministry  sprang  out  of  that.  I  went  in  with  this  general 
guiding  purpose  in  my  mind  :  Whatever  else  I  do  not  know,  this 
30 


493  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

I  do  knovv,  that  men  are  sinful  ;  whatever  else  I  do  not  know,  1 
know  that  men  need  to  be  born  again  ;  whatever  I  do  not  know, 
I  do  believe  that  it  is  in  the  power  of  God  to  change  the  hearts  of 
men  ;  and  I  gradually  formed  a  theology  by  practice — by  trying 
it  on,  and  the  things  that  really  did  God's  work  in  the  hearts  of 
men  I  set  down  as  good  theology,  and  the  things  that  did  not, 
whether  they  were  true  or  not,  they  were  not  true  to  me.  In  that 
way,  from  the  practical  standpoint,  after  I  had  thrown  off  in  dis- 
gust all  the  old  systems  of  theology,  I  felt  my  way  back,  until  at 
last  I  came  to  a  point  in  which  1  said  to  myself  :  "  Why,  all  these 
theologies  really  agree  in  certain  great  aims  and  great  facts,  men 
agree  as  to  the  reality  of  sin,  and  yet  differ  as  to  its  philosophy  ; 
in  the  reality  of  conversion  but  not  in  the  philosophy  of  it.  Good 
men  differ  not  so  much  in  respecu  to  the  great  fundamental  facts 
and  doctrines — the  great  drift  and  end  of  things — as  to  the  theory 
of  them  and  their  systematic  value.  So  I  came  to  have  a  catholic 
side  toward  other  theologies,  which  has  been  misinterpreted  into 
supposing  that  I  hold  one  thing  to  be  about  as  good  as  another, 
or  that  I  had  no  system,  and  floated  about  here,  there  and  every- 
where. 

FUNDAMENTAL    DOCTRINES. 

Now,  in  order  to  make  this  a  little  more  plain,  to  throw  a  little 
light  on  the  operation  of  my  mind,  I  came  to  think  finally  that 
there  are  three  fundamental  ideas  of  doctrine.  That  is  to  say, 
doctrine  may  be  regarded  as  fundamental  from  three  standpoints. 
First,  from  the  standpoint  of  theology.  Many  things  are  funda- 
mental to  a  system  of  theology,  necessary  to  complete  the  whole 
chain  of  thinking  from  the  beginning  clear  around  to  the  end. 
The  most  complete,  interlinked,  compact,  and  self-consistent  the- 
ology in  the  world  is  the  Calvinistic — the  higher  you  go  the  bet- 
ter it  is  as  a  purely  metaphysical  and  logical  concatenation.  Many 
doctrines  are  fundamental  to  this  system  which  are  by  no  means 
necessary  to  Christian  life  and  character.  A  man  may  be  a  good 
Christian  who  accepts  or  who  rejects  many  of  the  doctrines  of 
Calvinism.  Then,  secondly,  you  may  look  at  fundamental  doc- 
trines from  the  standpoint  of  ecclesiastical  organization.  There 
are  a  great  many  things  that  are  indispensable  to  the  existence  of 
a   church  that   are   not   necessary   to  the  piety  of  the  individual 


THEOLOGICAL.  493 

member  of  that  church.  You  take  the  Roman  system.  Funda- 
mentalism there  means  not  so  much  systematic  theology'  as  it  does 
the  truth  necessary  to  the  maintenance  and  influence  of  the 
church  as  God's  abode  on  earth  ;  and  you  might  take  or  reject  a 
great  many  theological  points  in  that  system  provided  you  stuck 
to  the  church  and  held  to  it  firmly. 

Now  comes  a  question  which  I  have  always  regarded  as  of  spe- 
cial importance,  viz.  :  Wliat  doctrines  are  fundamental  to  the  for- 
mation of  Christian  character  and  to  its  complete  development  ? 
There  are  many  things  that  are  necessary  to  a  system  of  theology 
that  are  not  necessary  to  the  conviction  or  conversion  of  men.  I 
have  called  those  things  fundamental  which  were  necessary  for  the 
conviction  of  sin,  for  conversion  from  sin,  for  development  of 
faith,  for  dominant  love  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  for  the  build- 
ing up  of  a  Christlike  character.  That  dispenses  with  a  great 
many  doctrines  that  are  necessary  for  a  theological  system  or  for 
an  ecclesiastical  system.      Now,  let  me  go  into  details. 

A    PERSONAL    GOD. 

And,  first,  I  believe  in  God,  and  never  for  a  moment  have 
faltered  in  believing,  in  a  personal  God,  as  distinguished  from  a 
Pantheistic  God,  whether  it  is  the  coarser  Pantheism  of  material- 
ism, believing  that  the  material  universe  is  God,  or  from  the  more 
subtle  view  of  Matthew  Arnold,  who  holds  that  God  is  nothing 
but  a  tendency  in  the  universe — a  something  that  is  not  me  that 
tends  toward  righteousness.  Well,  he  can  love  such  a  God,  but  I 
cannot.  I  would  rather  chew  thistledown  all  summer  long  than  to 
work  with  any  such  idea  as  that.  I  mean  personal,  not  as  if  He 
were  like  us,  but  personal  in  such  a  sense  as  that  those  that  know 
personality  in  men  cannot  make  any  mistake  in  attempting  to  grasp 
and  conceive  of  God.  He  is  more  than  man  in  the  operation  of 
the  intellect,  larger  m  all  the  moral  relations,  infinitely  deeper  and 
sweeter  in  the  affections.  In  all  those  elements,  notwithstanding 
He  is  so  much  larger  than  man  that  no  man  by  searching  can  find 
Him  out  to  perfection,  yet  the  humblest  person  can  conceive  that 
there  is  such  a  Being.  They  know  in  a  general  way  what  the  Be- 
ing is,  and  that  He  is  a  personal  Being,  and  accessible  as  other 
persons  are  accessible,  to  the  thoughts,  the  feelings,  the  wants, 
the  cares  of  men.     So  I  have  believed  and  so  I  do  believe.     Then 


4^4  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

as  to  the  controversy  as  to  the  knowable  and  unknowable  ;  I  be- 
lieve on  both  sides.     It  is  not  usual  that  I  am  on  both  sides  of 
any   question  at  the  same  time  ;  but  I  am  here.     I  believe  that 
there  are  elements  that  are  distinctly  knowable  in  quality  but  not 
in  quantity,  in  nature  but  not  in  scope.     I  believe  that  when  you 
say  that  God  can  do  so  and  so,  or  cannot  do  so  and  so,  you  are  all 
at  sea.     What  God  can  do  and  what  God  cannot  do  in  the  im- 
mensity of  His  being  lies  beyond  the  grasp  of  human  thought. 
The  attributes  are  but  alphabetic  letters.     We  spell  a  few  simpla 
sentences.     But  the  greatness,  the  majesty,  the  scope,  the  variety 
that  is  in  Him  we  cannot  compute.      It  will  break  upon  us  when 
we  shall  see  Him  as  He  is,  and  not  through  the  imperfection  of 
human  analogies  and  experiences.      I  thank  God  that  there  is  so 
much  that  is  unknowable.      When  Columbus  discovered  America 
he  did  know  that  he  had   discovered  a  continent,  but  he  did  not 
know  its  contents,  what  the  mountain  ranges  were,  nor  what  or 
where  the  rivers  were,  nor  the  lakes,  nor  the  inhabitants.     Yet 
he  did  know  he  had  made  the  discovery  of  the  continent.     And  I 
know  God  so  that  I  walk  with  Him  as  with  a  companion  ;  I  whis- 
per to  Him,  I  believe  that  He  imparts  thoughts  to  me  and  feelings, 
and  yet  when  you  ask  me  :  "  Can  you  describe    dim  ?     Can  you 
make  an  inventory  of  His  attributes  ?"   I  cannot.      I  thank  God 
He  so  transcends  anything  we  know  of  Him  that  God  is  unknow- 
able.    People  say,  "  Some  may  believe  tliis,  but  can  you  prove  it  ?" 
Suppose  I  were  to  have  said  in  my  youthful  days  to  the  woman  of 
my  choice,  my  honored  wife,  "  I  love  you,"   and  she  handed  me 
a  slate  and  pencil  and  said,  "  Be  kind  enough  to  demonstrate  that, 
will  you  ?"     She  would  not  have  been  my  wife  if  she  had.     Are 
not  the  finest  feelings  that  you  know  thuse  that  are  unsusceptible 
of  demonstration?     Certainly  by  analysis,  desciiption,  language? 
Are  not  those  things  that  make  you  not  only- different  from  the 
animal,  but  from  the  men  around  about  you,  that  lift  you  into  a 
higher  atmosphere,  do  they  not  transcend  any  evidence  that  the 
sense  can  give  ?     And  is  not  that  the  instruction  that  runs  through 
all  of  Paul's  writings  ? 

So  I  hold  and  so  I  have  taught  of  God.  Not  seeable,  not 
known  by  the  senses,  the  full  circuit  of  His  being  not  discerned 
except  by  moral  intuition,  by  the  range  of  susceptibility,  when  the 
down  shining  of  the  Holy  Ghost  comes  to  me  I  know  by  an  evi- 


THEOLOGICAL.  495 

dence  within  myself  that  is  unspeakably  raore  convincing  to  mc 
than  eye  or  hand  or  ear  can  be,  that  there  is  a  God  and  that  He  is 
my  God  ! 

THE    TRINITY. 

I  accept  without  analysis  the  tri-personality  of  God.     I  accept 
the  Trinity  ;  perhaps  because  I  was  educated  in  it.     No  matter 
why,  I  accept  it.     Are  there  any  difficulties  in  it  ?     I  should  like 
to  know  if  there  are  any  great  questions  of  the  structure  of  the  uni- 
verse, of  the  nature  of  mind,  that  do  not  run  you  into  difficulties 
when  you  go  a  little  way  in  them.     But  I  hold  that  while  I  can- 
not analyze  and  localize  into  distinct  elements,  as  it  were,  the  three 
Persons  of  the  Trinity,  I  hold  them— ths  Father,  the  Son  and  the 
Holy  Ghost.     The  theories,  such  as,  for  instance,  in  part  are  hinted 
mthe  Nicene  Creed  and  outspun  with  amazing  ignorance  of  knowl- 
edge in  the  Athanasian  Creed,  I  do  not  believe.     The  Athanasian 
Creed  is  gigantic  spider  web  weaving.      I  leave  it  to  those  who  want 
to  get  stuck  on  it,  but  the  simple  declaration  that  God  exists  in 
unity  and  yet  in  the  tri-fold  personality,  I  accept.      A  man  says, 
*'  Do  you  believe  there  can  be  three  in  one  ?"     Yes  I  do.     It  is 
not  contrary  either  to  reason  or  to  the  analogies  in  Nature.      The 
first  forms  of  life,  the  lowest,  are  found  to  be  absolutely  simple  and 
unitary.     Every  stop   of  development  in  the  succession  of  animal 
life  is  toward  complexity— complexity  of  functions,  of  organs,  of 
powers  and  faculties — and  when  we  reach  the  higher  animals  the 
complexity  of  mental  traits  is  discovered-^animal  passions,  then 
social   instincts,    affections,    moral    sentinients — until   in   civilized 
man  we  find  a  being  composed  not  only  of  multitudes  of  parts,  but 
of  groups,  so  that  unity  is  made  up  by  whole  families  of  facul- 
ties.     I  can  conceive  that  in  a  higher  range  of  being  unity  may  be 
comprised  of  persons,  as  in  the  lower  it  is  made  up  of  groups  of 
faculties.      It  is  not  proof  of  trinity  in  unity,  but  it  dissipates  the 
notion  that  three  may  not  be  one.      I  do  not  say  it  is  so,  but  it 
runs  right  along  and  in  the  line  of  analogies  of  nature,  and  predis- 
poses one  to  accept  the  implication  of  the  New  Testament  as  to 
the  mode  of  Divine  existence.     As  to  any  attempt  to  divide  the 
functions — the  Father  to  His  function,  the  Son  to  another  depart- 
ment, and  the  Holy  Ghost  to  yet  another  function,  I  leave  it  to 
those  who  are  better  informed  than  I  am. 


496  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

FAITH    IN    CHRIST. 

But  let  me  say  first,  that  vvliile  there  are  of  course  no  doubts  as  to 
tlie  existence  of  God  the  Father,  in  any  Christian  sect,  there  have 
been  grave  doubts  as  to  tlie  divinity  of  Christ,  but  not  in  my 
mind.  I  believe  fully,  enthusiastically,  v^'ithout  break,  pause,  or 
aberration,  in  the  divmity  of  Christ.  I  believe  that  Christ  is  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh.  Is  the  whole  of  God  in  Christ  ?  Well, 
that  is  asking  me.  Can  infinity  be  inclosed  in  the  finite  ?  What 
I  understand  by  His  laying  aside  His  glory  is  that  Christ,  when  He 
came  under  the  limitations  of  time  and  space  and  flesh  was  limited 
by  them.  I  am  limited.  You  are  limited.  If  you  go  down  into 
the  ,  Five  Points  to  talk  with  men,  you  la}'  aside  at  home  two 
thirds  of  that  which  is  best  in  you.  You  cannot  bring  it  before 
such  persons.  You  are  limited  by  the  condition  of  their  minds. 
In  other  words,  it  is  quite  possible  that  even  God,  though  I  know 
not  how,  should  manifest  Himself  under  limitations  at  times,  and 
that  the  whole  power  and  knowledge  and  glory  of  God  should  not 
appear  during  His  earth  life.  During  His  life  He  made  Himself 
a  man,  not  being  ashamed  to  be  called  a  brother.  He  went 
through  the  identical  experiences  that  men  go  through.  He  was 
born.  He  was  a  baby,  with  no  more  knowledge  than  a  baby  has  ; 
a  youth,  with  no  more  knowledge  than  a  youth  has.  He  grew  in 
stature.  He  grew  in  knowledge.  I  believe  that  Christ  Himself, 
at  times,  had  the  consciousness  of  His  full  being.  There  were 
days  when  it  seemed  as  though  the  heavens  opened  and  He  saw 
the  whole  of  Himself  and  felt  His  whole  power.  But  the  sub- 
stance of  His  being  was  divine,  and  He  was  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh.  That  is  my  faith,  and  I  never  swerved  from  it.  And  I  can 
go  farther  and  say,  I  cannot  pray  to  the  Father  except  through 
Christ  ;  I  pray  to  Christ.  I  must.  The  way  the  Spirit  of  God 
works  with  me  makes  it  necessary  that  I  should  have  something 
that  I  can  clasp,  and  to  me  the  Father  is  vague.  I  believe  in  a 
Father,  but  the  definition  of  Him  in  my  vision  is  not  to  me  what 
the  portraiture  of  Christ  is.  Though  I  say  Father,  I  am  thinking 
of  Christ  all  the  time.  That  is  my  feeling,  that  is  my  life,  and  so 
I  have  preached,  so  I  have  taught  those  that  came  from  Unitarian 
instruction — never  asking  them  to  a  technical  argument  or  proof, 
but  simply  saying,    "  You   say  you  can  pray  to  the  Father,  but 


THEOLOGICAL.  497 

oannct  to  Christ.  You  are  praying  to  Christ  ;  you  don't  know  it. 
That  which  you  call  Father  is  that  which  is  interpreted  in  Christ. 
Since  the  Godhead  has  three  doors  of  approach  to  our  apprehen- 
sion, it  makes  no  difference  through  which  our  souls  enter." 

THE    HOLY    SPIRIT, 

Then  I  believe  next  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  one 
of  the  persons  of  the  Godhead.  And  in  regard  to  that  I  believe 
that  the  influence,  the  Divine  influence,  the  quickening,  stimulat- 
ing influence  of  the  mind  of  God  proceeds  from  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  that  it  is  uuiversHl,  constant,  imminent.  The  body  of  man 
receives  all  the  stimulus  it  needs  from  the  oiganized  physical  world 
— feeds  itself,  maintains  itself  ;  the  social  affections  receive  all  the 
stimulus  and  impulse  they  need  from  society,  but  whatever  in  man 
that  reaches  toward  holiness — aspiration,  love  of  truth,  justice, 
purity — feeds  upon  the  spiritual  nature  and  is  developed  by  the 
down-shining  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  as  the  sunlight  is  the 
father  of  every  flower  that  blossoms — though  no  flower  would 
blossom  if  it  had  not  separate  organized  existence  in  the  plant  on 
which  it  shines — so  "  work  out  your  own  salvation  with  fear  and 
trembling,  for  it  is  God  that  worketh  in  you,"  describes  the  work- 
ing of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  producing  right  affections  and  good 
works  in  man. 

PROVIDENCE. 

I  hold  and  I  teach  that  there  is  a  general  and  a  special  provi- 
dence of  God  which  overrules  human  life  by  and  through  natural 
laws,  but,  also,  I  believe  that  there  is  an  overruling  and  special 
providence  of  God  in  things  pertaining  to  human  life  as  well  as  to 
the  life  of  the  world  by  the  direct  action  of  His  own  will  ;  by 
such  a  use  of  laws  in  the  first  place  upon  us,  such  a  use  as  may 
not  be  known  to  us,  but  is  peifectly  known  to  God,  by  such  a  use 
of  natural  laws  as  is  wisely  adapted  to  effect  needed  results.  A 
great  thinker  can  employ  natural  laws  to  create  conditions  of  life 
that  did  not  exist  before,  to  change  public  sentiment,  to  repress 
indolence,  to  stimulate  activity.  Every  man  that  is  acting  in  the 
world  is  employing  natural  laws  with  cunning,  with  wisdom,  with 
skill,  by  which  he  is  enabled  to  change  the  whole  course  and  cur- 
rent of  things.     God  stands  behind  the  whole  system  of  natural 


498  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

laws  and  can  produce  special  results  in  men  whenever  He  pleases. 
Such  a  doctrine  of  the  special  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God  makes 
prayer  of  benefit  to  man.  I  believe  millions  of  prayers  are  not 
answered  and  that  millions  are — some  directly,  some  indirectly. 
Man  has  the  feeling  and  should  have  the  feeling  :  "  I  have  a  right 
to  carry  myself  and  all  that  concerns  me  to  God  ;  it  is  not  in  vain 
that  I  pray  to  Him."  I  believe  in  the  efli^acy  of  prayer,  partly 
by  its  moral  reaction  upon  us,  to  be  sure,  but  a  great  d^al  more 
by  direct  answer  from  God.  I  believe,  then,  in  Divine  Provi- 
dence ;  I  believe  in  prayer,  and  out  of  the  same  view  of  God  I 
believe  in 

MIRACLES. 

I  believe  miracles  are  possible  now  ;  they  not  only  were  possible 
but  were  real  in  tbe  times  gone  by — especially  the  two  great  mira- 
cles that  began  and  ended  the  Christian  dispensation — the  miracu- 
lous conception  of  Christ  and  His  resurrection  from  the  dead. 
When  I  give  those  up  the  two  columns  on  which  the  house  stands 
"will  have  to  fall  to  the  ground.  Being  of  scientific  tastes,  believ- 
ing in  evolution,  believing  in  the  whole  scheme  of  natural  laws,  I 
say  they  are  reconcilable  with  the  true  theory  of  miracles. 

I  wrote  in  a  book  when  I  came  to  Brooklyn  :  "I  foresee  there 
is  to  be  a  period  of  great  unbelief  ;  now  I  am  determined  so  to 
preach  as  to  lay  a  foundation,  when  the  flood  comes,  on  which 
men  can  build,"  and  I  have  thus,  as  it  were,  been  laboring  for  the 
Gentiles,  not  for  the  Jews,  in  the  general  drift  of  my  ministry. 

BEGENERATION. 

Man  is  a  being  created  in  imperfection  and  seeking  a  full  de- 
velopment. Second,  I  believe  him  to  be  sinful — universally  man 
is  sinful,  but  I  do  not  believe  he  is  totally  depraved.  I  believe 
that  to  be  a  misleading  phrase.  Bat  no  man  ever  lived,  and  no 
man  ever  will  live,  that  was  only  a  man,  that  was  not  a  sinner  ; 
and  he  is  a  sinner,  not  simply  by  infirmity,  though  much  of  that 
which  is  called  sin  is  but  infirmity,  but  he  is  a  sinner  to  such  an 
extent  that  he  needs  to  be  transferred  out  of  his  natural  state  into 
a  higher  and  spiritual  state.  He  needs  to  be  born  again.  If  any 
man  believes  in  the  doctrine  of  the  sinfulness  of  man  I  do,  and  1 
have  evidence  of  it  every  day,  and  if  ever  a  man  believed  in  being 


THEOLOGICAL.  499 

born  again,  I  believe  in  that.  The  degree  of  sinfulness  in  men,  I 
have  always  taught,  is  dependent  on  a  variety  of  circumstances. 
Some  persons  are  far  less  sinful  than  others.  It  is  far  easier  for 
some  to  rise  into  the  spiritual  kingdom  than  for  others.  Heredity 
has  a  powerful  influence.  The  circumstances  that  surround  men 
by  their  influence  lift  some  very  high  and  leave  others  compara- 
tively low.  God  judges  men  according  to  their  personal  and  their 
actual  condition. 

[Here  a  member  of  the  association  asked  if  a  man  needed  to  be  re- 
generated for  anything  beside  his  personal  sin.] 

He  needs  to  be  regenerated  to  become  a  man.  I  hold  that  man 
is  first  an  animal,  and  that  then  he  is  a  social  animal.  He  is  not 
a  full  man  and  a  religious  being  until  he  is  lifted  into  that  higher 
realm  in  which  he  walks  with  God.  And  every  man  needs  to  be 
lifted  into  that  high  estate,  partly  by  parental  instruction  ;  by  the 
secondary  or  reflected  light  of  Christianity  upon  the  morals,  cus- 
toms, and  spirit  of  the  age  in  which  he  lives  ;  some  men  are  lifted 
nearer  the  threshold.  There  is  not  a  man  born  that  does  not  need 
to  be  born  again,  and  it  is  a  work  which  is  as  impossible  to  men 
as  for  a  person  to  come  suddenly  to  education,  to  knowledge,  sim- 
ply by  a  volition.  No  man  can  ever  lift  himself  up  so.  It  is  not 
within  human  power,  but  it  is  within  the  power  of  a  man  to  put 
himself  under  instructors  and  grow  up  into  education,  and  I  hold 
man  has  not  the  power  to  regenerate  himself.  He  is  under  the 
stimulating  influence  of  the  present  and  immanent  Spirit  of  God 
which  is  striving  with  every  man  ;  when  he  will  open  his  mind  to 
receive  Divme  influence,  every  man  is  helped,  and  the  act  of  sur- 
render to  God  and  entrance  into  the  spiritual  kingdom  are  the  joint 
act  of  the  man  willing  and  wishing  and  the  co-operative  influence 
of  the  spirit  of  God  enabling  him. 

INSPIRATION    OF    THK    BIBLE. 

As  to  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  let  me  say  that  with  a  few 
exceptions  I  can  accept  the  chapter  in  the  Confession  of  Faith  on 
that  subject,  which  I  think  to  be  a  very  admirable  compend.  I 
will  read  it  : 

"  Although  the  light  of  nature  and  the  works  of  creation  and 
Providence  do  so  far  manifest  the  goodness,  wisdom,  and  power 


500  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

of  God  as  to  leave  men  inexcusable,  yet  they  are  -not  sufficient  to 
give  that  knowledge  of  God  and  of  His  will,  which  is  necessary 
unto  salvation  ;  therefore  it  pleased  the  Lord,  at  sundry  times 
and  in  divers  manners,  to  reveal  Himself  and  to  declare  that  His 
will  unto  His  church  ;  and  afterward,  for  the  better  preserving 
and  propagating  of  the  truth,  and  for  the  more  sure  establishment 
and  comfort  of  the  church  against  the  corruption  of  the  flesh  and 
the  malice  of  Satan  and  of  the  world,  to  commit  the  same  wholly 
unto  writing  ;  which  maketh  the  Holy  Scripture  to  he  most 
necessary  ;  those  former  ways  of  God's  revealing  His  will  unto  His 
people  being  now  ceased." 

That  is  my  theory.  The  Bible  is  the  record  of  the  steps  of  God 
in  revealing  Himself  and  His  will  to  man.  The  inspiration  was 
originally  upon  the  generation,  upon  the  race  ;  and  then  what 
was  gained  step  by  step  was  gathered  up,  as  this  says,  and  put 
into  writing,  for  the  better  preservation  of  it.  "  It  pleased  the 
Lord,  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners,  to  reveal  Himself, 
and  to  declare  that  His  will  unto  the  church  ;  and  afterward, 
for  the  better  preserving  and  propagating  of  the  truth,  and  for  the 
more  sure  establishment  and  comfort  of  the  church  against  the 
corruption  of  the  flesh  and  the  malice  of  Satan  and  of  the  world,  to 
conamit  the  same  wholly  unto  writing."  I  do  not  want  any  bet- 
ter definition  of  my  view  of  inspiration — that  is,  inspiration 
of  men,  not  inspiration  of  a  book — and  that  the  book  is  the 
record  of  that  inspiration  that  has  been  taking  place  from  gen- 
eration to  generation.  [Reading.]  "  The  authority  of  the 
Holy  Scripture,  for  which  it  ought  to  be  believed  and  obeyed, 
dependeth  not  upon  the  testimony  of  any  man  or  church,  but 
wholly  upon  God  (who  is  truth  itself),  the  author  thereof  ; 
and  therefore  it  is  to  be  received,  because  it  is  the  word  of  God. " 
I  have  no  objections  to  make  to  that.  [Reading.]  "  We 
may  be  moved  and  induced  by  the  testimony  of  the  church  to  a 
high  and  reverend  esteem  for  the  Holy  Scripture  ;  and  the  heaven- 
liness  of  the  matter,  the  efficacy  of  the  doctrine,  the  majesty  of  the 
style,  the  consent  of  all  the  parts,  the  scope  of  the  whole  (which  is 
to  give  all  glory  to  God),  the  full  discovery  it  makes  of  the  only 
way  of  man's  salvation,  the  many  other  incomparable  excellences, 
and  the  entire  perfection  thereof,  are  arguments  whereby  it  doth 
abundantly  evidence  itself  to  be  the  word  of  God  ;  yet,  notvvith- 


THEOLOGICAL.  601 

standing  our  full  persuasion  and  assurance  of  the  infallible  truth 
and  divine  authority  thereof,  is  from  the  inward  work  of  the  Holy- 
Spirit,  bearing  witness  by  and  with  the  word,  in  our  hearts." 
External  arguments  are  good,  that  says,  but  the  witness  of  God  in 
your  own  soul  is  the  best  evidence,  I  believe  that.  No  man  can 
wrest  the  Bible  from  me.  I  know  from  the  testimony  of  God  in 
my  moral  sense.  [Reading.]  "  The  whole  counsel  of  God  con- 
cerning all  things  necessary  for  His  own  glory. "  I  do  not  believe 
that.  Who  knows  what  is  necessary  for  God's  glory  ?  "  Man's 
salvation" — I  believe  that.  The  whole  counsel  of  God  concerning 
all  things  necessary  for  man's  salvation,  faith  and  life,  *'  is  either 
expressly  set  down  in  Scripture  or  by  good  and  necessary  conse- 
quence may  be  deduced  from  Scripture  ;  unto  which  nothing  at 
any  time  is  to  be  added,  whether  by  new  revelations  of  the  Spirit 
or  traditions  of  men."  Yes,  I  might  believe  that.  I  believe  it 
with  an  addendum.  "  Nevertheless  we  acknowledge  the  inward 
illumination  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  be  necessary  for  the  saving 
understanding  of  such  things  as  are  revealed  in  the  world."  That 
settles  that  little  question.  It  is  the  moral  consciousness.  It  is 
the  man  as  he  is  instructed  by  knowledge,  and  then  inflamed  or 
rendered  sensitive  by  the  spirit  of  God  that  sits  in  judgment  upon 
the  word  of  God.  Talk  about  our  not  being  allowed  to  come  to 
the  Bible  with  our  reason.  That  is  the  only  way  we  can  go.  Is 
a  man  to  come  with  his  ignorance,  through  a  council  or  somebody 
else's  thinking  ?  Must  we  not  use  our  reason  to  know  what  the 
word  of  God  is  ?  When  a  man  says,  "  You  must  not  dilute  the 
word  of  God  by  any  thinking  of  your  own  ;  you  must  not  trans- 
late the  Bible  or  construct  the  doctrines  of  the  Bible  except  by 
the  Bible  itself."  Then  I  will  turn  and  catechize  that  man  say- 
ing, "  Will  you  be  kind  enough  to  tell  me  from  the  Bible  alone 
what  a  lion  is  ?"  You  cannot.  *' Will  you  be  kind  enough  to 
define  from  the  Bible  what  a  mountain  is  ?"  You  cannot. 
"  Will  you,  out  of  the  Bible,  define  a  river,  an  eagle,  a  sparrow, 
a  flower,  a  king,  a  mother,  a  child  ?"  You  cannot  do  it.  What 
do  you  do  ?  You  go  right  to  the  thing  itself  outside  of  the  Bible. 
When  you  see  a  flower,  you  know  what  the  Bible  means  when  it 
says  a  flower.  In  all  things  that  are  cognizable  by  man's  senses, 
he  finds  what  is  the  thing  spoken  of  in  the  Bible  by  going  to  the 
thing  itself,  outside  of  the  Bible.     It  is  absurd  to  say  that  the 


503  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

Bible  must  be  its  own  sole  expounder.  Now,  that  which  is  true 
in  respect  to  miracles — in  respect  to  the  whole  economy  of  human 
life — is  it  not  also  true  in  respect  to  the  man  himself  and  his  own 
individual  experience  ?  A  man  says  :  "  You  must  not  undertake 
to  dictate  to  the  word  of  God  what  conversion  is."  I  should  like 
to  know  how  I  am  going  to  find  it  out  except  by  seeing  it  ?  I  go 
to  the  thing  itself.  Then  I  understand  what  is  meant  by  it.  And 
so  far  from  not  going  outside  of  the  Bible  to  interpret  it,  no  man 
can  interpret  it  without  a  knowledge  of  what  lies  outside  of  it. 
That  is  the  very  medium  through  which  any  man  comes  to  under- 
stand it. 

Dr.  H.  M.  Storrs — You  used  the  sentence  just  now,  "We  are  not  to 
substitute  our  reason  for  the  Word  of  God?" 

Mr.  Beecher — Yes,  and  in  using  it,  I  say  you  are  not  confined 
to  the  mere  comparison  of  texts.  You  have  a  right  to  go  out  to 
things  that  lie  within  the  reach  of  human  knowledge,  and  study 
outward  things  spoken  of,  and  then  come  back  to  the  Bible  with  a 
better  understanding  of  what  the  Bible  teaches.  Well,  I  shall  not 
have  time  to  say  much  more  ;  but,  in  the  main,  with  such  modi- 
fications as  will  be  clearly  understood  now  by  what  I  have  said,  I 
accept  the  first  chapter  in  the  Confession  of  Faith  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  as  being  a  very  wise  and  very  full  and  very  admir- 
able definition  of  my  views  of  the  Bible. 

ATONEMENT. 

[Mr.  Beecher  had  spoken  an  hour  and  a  half  before  reaching  this 
topic.  It  became  impracticable  for  the  reporter  to  reduce  it  to  writing 
both  because  he  had  become  weary  with  the  long  session,  and  because 
the  speaker  was  interrupted  by  a  m.ultitude  of  questions  from  all  parts 
of  the  house.  Mr.  Beecher  has  been  obliged  to  write  out  his  views  for 
publication  without  regard  to  the  reporter's  copy.] 

The  New  Testament,  instead  of  discussing  the  atonement — the 
word  is  but  once  used  in  the  New  Testament — confines  itself  to 
the  setting  forth  of  Christ,  his  nature,  power,  relations  and  com- 
mands. We  hear  nothing  of  a  "  plan,"  of  an  "  arrangement," 
of  a  "  scheme  of  salvation,"  of  an  "  atonement,"  but  everything 
of  Christ's  work.  I  am  accustomed  to  say  that  Christ  is  in  Him- 
self the  Atonement,  that  He  is  set  forth  in  His  life,  teaching, 
suffering,  death,  resurrection  and  heavenly  glory,   as  empowered 


f 


THEOLOGICAL.  503 

to  forgive  sin  and  to  transform  men  into  a  new  and  nobler  life 
who  know  sin  and  accept  him  in  full  and  loving  trust.  He  is  set 
forth  ;is  one  prepared  and  empowered  to  save  men,  to  remit  the 
penalty  of  past  sins,  and  to  save  them  from  the  dominion  of  sm. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  salvation  that  men  should  know  hoio  Christ 
was  prepared  to  be  a  Saviour.  It  is  He  Himself  that  is  to  be  ac- 
cepted, and  not  the  philosophy  of  His  nature  or  work.  I  employ 
the  term  Christ  for  that  which  systematic  writers  call  the  Atone- 
ment. But  Christ  is  not  merely  a  historic  name.  It  is  a  group 
of  attributes,  a  group  of  qualities,  a  character,  a  divine  nature,  in 
full  life  and  activity  among  men.  When  we  accept  Christ,  we 
yield  love  and  allegiance  to  that  character,  to  those  qualities,  deeds 
and  dispositions  which  make  his  name  "to  be  above  every 
name."  The  idea  of  faith  is  such  an  acceptance  of  Christ's  heav- 
enly dispositions  as  shall  reorganize  our  character  and  draw  us 
into  a  likeness  to  Him.  When  it  is  said  that  there  is  none  other 
name  given  under  heaven  whereby  men  can  be  saved,  I  understand 
it  to  be  a  declaration  that  man's  exit  from  sinful  life  and  entrance 
into  a  spiritual  life,  can  only  be  through  a  new  inspiration — a  new 
birth — into  these  divine  elements.  What  Christ  was,  man  must 
become  ;  the  way  and  the  life  He  was.  It  is  by  the  way  of  those 
qualities  that  every  man  must  rise  into  a  regenerated  state.  Christ 
is  to  the  soul  a  living  person  full  of  grace,  mercy  and  truth  ;  of 
love  that  surpasses  all  human  experiences  or  ideals  (it  passes  un- 
derstanding) a  love  that  is  patient,  forgiving,  self-sacrificing,  sor- 
rowing and  suffering  not  for  its  own  but  for  others'  sins  and  sin- 
ful tendencies.  Christ  is  a  living  actor  moving  among  men  in 
purity,  truth,  justice  and  love,  not  for  His  own  sake,  not  seeking 
His  own  glory,  but  seeking  to  open,  both  by  His  person, 
presence,  actions,  words  and  fidelity,  the  spiritual  kingdom  of 
God  to  men's  understandings — in  short,  it  is  the  moral  nature  of 
God  manifest  in  the  flesh — to  "  follow  "'  Him,  to  "  learn  of  " 
Him.  to  become  His  "  disciple  "  or  pupil,  to  "  put  on  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,"  to  be  "  hid  in  Him,"  to  have  not  our  own  natural 
rectitude,  but  "  that  rectitude  or  righteousness  which  is  by  faith 
in  Him,"  to  assume  His  "  yoke  and  burden" — all  these  and  a 
multitude  of  other  terms  clearly  interpret  the  meaning  of  faith  in 
Christ,  or  receiving  Christ. 

I  do   not  teach  that  this  heart  of  Christ  presented  to    men 


504  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

"  gives  tliem  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God  ;"  that  the  ordinary 
human  understanding  could  of  itself  develope  the  energy  which  is 
needed  for  the  revolution  of  human  character  and  life.  I  teach 
that  there  is  a  power  behind  it — the  stimulating,  enlightening,  in- 
spiring spirit  of  God — the  Holy  Ghost — and  that  this  view  of 
Christ,  when  set  home  npon  men  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  this  develop- 
ment of  the  Divine  nature  in  Christ,  "  is  the  wisdom  of  God  and 
the  power  of  God  unto  salvation."  It  is  asked  whether  I  limit 
the  effect  of  Christ's  life  and  death  to  its  relation  to  man,  and 
whether  it  had  no  relation  to  the  unseen  world,  to  the  law  of  God 
in  heavenly  places,  to  the  administration  of  justice  through  the 
ages.  In  reply  I  would  say,  that  I  cannot  conceive  of  the  emer- 
gence from  heaven  of  such  a  being  as  Christ,  upon  such  a  mission, 
without  its  ha\ing  relations  to  the  procedures  of  the  unseen  world. 
There  are  some  passages  of  Scripture  that  bear  strongly  to  that 
view.  But  whatever  necessity  there  was  for  Christ's  sacrifice 
apart  from  its  influence  on  man,  and  whatever  effect  it  may  have 
had  on  Divine  government,  that  part  of  the  truth  is  left  unex- 
plained in  the  Word  of  God.  If  alluded  to,  as  I  am  inclined  to 
think,  it  is  left  without  expansion  or  solution.  The  Scriptures 
declare  that  the  puffering  of  Christ  secured  the  remission  of  sins. 
They  do  not  say  how  it  secures  it.  The  fact  is  stated,  but  not 
the  reason  or  phi!oso[)hy  of  it.  The  Apostles  continually  point  to 
Christ's  sufferings — they  inspire  hope  because  Christ  has  suffered  ; 
they  include  in  their  commission  that  th^^ir  joyful  errand  is  to 
announce  remission  of  sins  by  reason  of  Christ's  work.  But  no- 
where do  I  see  any  attempt  to  reach  those  questions  of  modern 
theology.  Whi/  was  it  necessary  ?  How  did  His  suffering  open 
a  way  for  sinners  ?  I  regard  the  statement  in  Romans  3  :  20-26 
as  covering  the  ground  which  I  hold,  and  as  including  all  that  is 
known  : 

' '  Therefore  by  the  deeds  of  the  law  there  shall  no  flesh  be  justified 
in  His  sight  :  for  by  the  law  is  the  knowledge  of  sin.  But  now  the 
righteousness  of  God  without  the  law  is  manifested,  being  witnessed  by 
the  law  and  the  prophets  ;  Even  the  righteousness  of  God  which  is'by 
faith  of  Jesus  Christ  unto  all  and  upon  all  them  that  believe:  for  there  is 
no  dififerenoe  :  for  all  have  sinned  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God  ; 
being  justified  freely  by  His  grace  through  the  redemption  that  is  in 
Christ  Jesus  :  whom  God  hath  set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation  through 
faith  in  His  blood,  to  declare  His  righteousness  for  the  remission  of  sins 


THEOLOGICAL.  505 

that  are  past,  througli  the  forbearance  of  God  ;  To  declare,  I  say,  at 
this  time  his  righteousness  :  that  He  might  be  just,  and  the  justifier  of 
him  which  believeth  in  Jesus." 

That  part  of  Christ's  mission,  or  that  part  of  the  Atonement,  if 
one  choose  that  phrase,  which  flames  through  all  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  which  can  be  understood,  is,  that  moral  power  which  it 
exerts  and  those  effects  which,  through  the  Holy  Spirit,  are  pro- 
duced by  it 

[At  this  point  the  report  is  resumed.] 

FUTURE    PUNISHMENT. 

I  will  say  a  few  words  on  the  subject  of  eschatoloj^y.  I  believe 
in  the  teaching  of  the  Scripture  that  conduct  and  character  in  this 
life  produce  respectively  beneficial  or  detrimental  effects  both  in 
the  life  that  now  is  and  in  the  life  that  is  to  come  ;  and  that  a 
man  dying  is  not  in  the  same  condition  on  the  other  side  whether 
he  be  bad  or  whether  he  be  good  ;  but  that  consequences  follow 
and  go  over  the  border  ;  and  that  the  nature  of  the  consequences 
of  transgression — that  is,  such  transgression  as  alienates  the  man 
from  God  and  from  the  life  that  is  in  God — such  consequences  are 
so  large,  so  dreadful,  that  every  man  ought  to  be  deterred  from 
venturing  upon  them.  They  are  so  terrible  as  to  constitute  the 
foundation  of  urgent  motives  and  appeal  on  the  side  of  fear,  hold- 
ing men  back  from  sin,  or  inspiring  them  with  the  desire  of  right- 
eousness. That  far  I  hold  that  the  Scriptures  teach  explicitly. 
Beyond  that  I  do  not  go,  on  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures.  I 
Lave  my  own  philosophical  theories  about  the  future  life  ;  but 
what  is  revealed  to  my  mind  is  simply  this  :  The  results  of  a 
man's  conduct  reach  over  into  the  other  world  on  those  that  are 
persistently  and  inexcusably  wicked,  and  man's  punishment  in  the 
life  to  come  is  of  such  a  nature  and  of  such  dimensions  as  ought  to 
alarm  any  man  and  put  him  off  from  the  dangerous  ground  and 
turn  him  toward  safety.  I  do  not  think  we  are  authorized  by  th^- 
Scriptures  to  say  that,  it  is  endless  in  the  sense  in  which  we  ordi- 
narily employ  that  term.  So  much  for  that,  and  that  is  the  extent 
of  my  authoritative  teaching  on  that  subject. 


506  HENRY  WARD   BEECHER. 


FAREWELL  ! 


Now,  Christian  brethren,  allow  me  to  say  that  these  views  which 
I  have  opened  to  you,  and  which,  of  course,  in  preaching  in  the 
pulpit  take  on  a  thousand  various  forms,  under  differing  illustra- 
tions, and  for  the  different  purposes  for  which  I  am  preaching — 
allow  me  to  say  these  views  have  not  been  taken  up  suddenly.  I 
might  as  well  say  my  hair  was  suddenly  got  up  for  the  occasion, 
or  that  my  bones  I  got  manufactured  because  I  wanted  to  go 
somewhe»-e.  Why,  they  are  part  of  my  life  and  growth.  I  have 
not  varied  in  the  general  line  or  direction  from  the  beginning  to 
this  day — like  a  tree  that  grows  and  diversifies  its  branches,  but  is 
the  same  tree,  the  same  nature.  So  I  teach  now  with  more  ful- 
ness and  with  more  illustrations  and  in  a  clearer  light  what  I 
taught  forty  years  ago.  It  is  not  from  love  of  novelty  that  I  vary 
in  anything.  I  do  not  love  novelty  as  such,  but  I  do  love  truth. 
T  am  inclined  to  sympathize  with  the  things  that  have  been  :  rever- 
ence for  the  past  lies  deep  in  my  nature.  It  has  not  been  from 
any  desire  to  separate  myself  from  the  teachings  of  my  brethren 
in  the  Christian  ministry.  I  should  rather  a  thousand  times  go 
with  them  than  go  against  them,  though  if  I  am  called  to  go 
against  them  I  have  the  courage  to  do  it,  no  matter  what  the  con- 
sequences may  be.  I  have  endeavored,  through  stormy  times, 
through  all  forms  of  excitement,  to  make  known  what  was  the 
nature  of  God  and  what  He  expected  human  life  to  be,  and  to 
bring  to  bear  upon  that  one  point  every  power  and  infuence  in 
me.  I  have  nothing  that  I  kept  back — neither  reason,  nor  wit, 
nor  humor,  nor  experience,  nor  moral  sensibility,  nor  social 
affection.  I  poured  my  whole,  being  into  the  ministry  with  this 
one  object  :  to  glorify  God  by  lifting  man  up  out  of  the  natural 
state  into  the  pure  spiritual  life.  In  doing  this  I  have  doubtless 
alienated  a  great  many.  The  door  has  been  shut,  and  sympathy 
has  been  withheld.  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  a  great  many  of 
the  biethren  of  the  Congregational  faith  would  speak  more  than 
disapproval,  and  tliat  many  even  in  the  association  to  which  I  be- 
long feel  as  though  they  could  not  bear  the  burden  of  responsi- 
bility of  being  supposed  to  tolerate  the  views  I  have  held  and 
taught,  and  it  is  on  this  account  that  I  as  a  man  of  honor  and  a 
Christian  gentleman  cannot  afford  to  lay  on  anybody  the  responsi- 


THEOLOGICAL.  507 

bility  of  my  views.  I  cannot  afford  especially  to  put  tlicm  in 
such  a  position  that  they  are  obliged  to  defend  me.  I  cannot 
make  them  responsible  in  any  way,  and  therefore  I  now  here, 
and  in  the  greatest  love  and  sympathy,  lay  down  my  membership 
of  tliis  association  and  go  forth — not  to  be  separated  from  you.  I 
shall  be  nearer  to  you  than  if  I  should  be  in  ecclesiastical  relation. 
I  will  work  for  you,  I  will  lecture  for  you,  I  will  personally  do 
everything  I  can  for  you.  I  will  even  attend  these  meetings  as  a 
spectator,  with  you.  T  will  devote  my  whole  life  to  the  Congre- 
gational churches  and  their  interests,  as  well  as  to  all  other 
churches  of  Christ  Jesus.  I  am  not  going  out  into  the  cold.  I  am 
not  going  out  into  another  sect.  I  am  not  going  away  from  you 
in  any  spirit  of  disgust.  I  never  was  in  warmer  personal  sympa- 
thy with  every  one  of  you  than  I  am  now  ;  but  I  lay  down  the 
responsibility  that  you  have  borne  for  me  —I  take  it  off  from  you 
and  put  it  on  myself.  And  now  you  can  say,  "  He  is  a  member 
of  the  Congregational  Church,  but  he  has  relieved  his  brethren  of 
all  responsibility  whatever  for  his  teachings."  That  you  are  per- 
fectly free  to  do.  With  thanks  for  your  great  kindness,  and  with 
thanks  to  God  for  the  life  which  we  have  had  here  together,  I  am 
now  no  longer  a  member  of  the  Congregational  Association  of 
New  York  and  Brooklyn,  but  with  you  a  member  of  the  Body  of 
Christ  Jesus,  in  full  fellowship  with  you  in  the  matter  of  faith  and 
love  and  hope. 

At  the  close  of  Mr.  Beeclier'a  addreps,  after  some  informal  debate,  a 
committee  of  three,  consistinjj  of  Messrs.  H.  M.  Storrs,  W.  C.  Stiles, 
and  A.  Wbittemore,  was  appointed  to  draft  a  resolution  expressive  of 
the  sentiments  of  the  Association,  which,  as  finally  amended,  was  carried 
without  a  dissenting  voice.     It  was  as  follows  : 

Resolved,  That  the  memhers  of  the  New  York  and  Brookl3Ti  Association  receive 
the  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  resignation  of  his  membership  in  this  body  with  very 
deep  pain  and  regret.  We  cannot  fail  to  recognize  the  guncrons  magnanimity  which 
has  led  him  to  volunteer  this  action,  lest  he  should  seem  even  indirectly  to  make  his 
brethren  responsible  before  the  public  for  the  support  of  philosophical  and  theological 
doctrines  wherein  he  is  popularly  supposed  to  differ  essentially  with  those  who  hold 
the  established  and  current  evangelical  faith.  His  full  and  proffered  exposition  of  doc- 
trinal views  that  he  has  made  at  this  meeting  indicates  the  propriety  of  his  continued 
membership  in  this  or  any  other  Congregational  Association.  We  hereby  declare 
our  desire  that  he  may  see  his  way  clear  to  reconsider  and  withdraw  it.  We  desire 
to  place  on  record  as  the  result  of  a  long  and  irtimate  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Beecher 
and  afamiliar  observation  of  the  results  of  his  life,  as  well  as  his  preaching  and  pastoral 
work,  that  we  cherish  for  him  an  ever-growing  personal  attachment  as  a  brother 
beloved  and  a  deepening  eenae  of  his  worth  as  a  Christian  minister.  We  cannot  now 
contemplate  the  possibility  of  his  future  'absence  from  our  meetings  without  a  de- 
pressing sense  of  the  loss  we  arc  to  suffer,  and  unitedly  pledge  the  hearts  of  the 
Association  to  him,  and  express  the  hope  thiit  the  day  for  his  return  may  soon  come. 

31 


SPIRITUAL. 


now  TO  BECOME  A   CHRISTIAN.* 

There  cannot  be  too  much  effort  made  to  bring  before  the 
minds  of  men  the  truths  of  Christ.  But,  when  men  are  made 
attentive  to  them,  it  seems  to  me  that  they  should  be  made  to 
feel  the  obligation  to  obey  Christ,  without  so  much  urging,  con- 
versatioa,  and  persuasive  labor.  Among  uneducated  heathen,  it 
would  be  different  ;  but  in  a  Christian  country  where  you  have 
literally  known  almost  nothing  else  than  the  truths  of  the  Gospel, 
presented  not  alone  in  the  didactic  and  logical  form,  but  presented 
evermore  in  that  most  blessed  form  in  which  the  true  Gospel  is 
preached,  namely,  in  the  example  of  a  praying  father,  a  praying 
mother,  a  praying  brother  or  sister,  a  consistent  friend,  wife  or 
child,  nothing  more  ought  to  be  required.  How  men  that  have 
been  taught  in  the  household  and  in  the  church,  by  example  as 
well  as  by  precept,  should  fall  into  the  mistake  of  supposing  that 
whenever  they  begin  to  be  inquirers  they  need  then  to  go  through 
another  and  special  course  of  training,  I  cannot  understand.  I  do 
not  think  that  there  is  an  intelli2:ent  man  in  this  conarreiJ^ation  that 
is  not  abundantly  qualified  to- day,  before  the  sun  goes  down,  to 
become  a  true  Christian  in  the  spiritual  and  experimental  sense  of 
the  term. 

More  than  that.  Unless  there  has  been  some  kind  of  an  official 
touch,  a  man's  conversion  is  scarcely  thought  to  be  complete  ; 
unless  some  appointed  class- leader,  some  elder,  some  deacon,  above 
all,  some  minister,  some  eminent  minister,  has  talked  with  him, 
explained  it  to  him,  upheld  him  in  this  hour,  encouraged  his  hope 
and  brought  him  clear  out,  he  does  not  feel  as  though  he  were 
right.      Whatever  may  be  the  hope  he  enjoys,   there  is  still  the 

=>•  An  Address  delivered  at  a  religious  meeting  in  Burton's  Old  Theatre. 


Views  — at  the   Peekskill   Farm. 


SPIRITUAL.  511 

impression  that  the  work  of  grace  requires  the  interposition  of 
some  official  instruction. 

I  wish  you  to  be  rid  of  this.  A  man  who  knows  enough  to  take 
care  of  his  business,  to  live  obediently  to  the  laws  of  the  land,  to 
live  in  the  affections  of  the  family,  knows  enough  to  begin  a  Chris- 
tian life.  Religion  and  religious  doctrines  are  very  different  things. 
We  do  not  ask  you  to  accept  a  theory  of  religious  doctrine  ;  nor 
any  system  of  philosophy.  We  ask  you  simply  to  begin  a  relig- 
ious life  and  to  begin  it  now. 

Are  you  willing  to  be  a  Christian  ?  Are  you  willing  from  this 
hour  to  hold  your  disposition,  your  life-powers,  and  all  your  busi- 
ness, under  the  control  of  Christ  ?  Will  you  go  to  school  to 
Christ  and  become  a  scholar,  for  the  sake  of  learning  how  to  live 
aright  ?  For,  if  you  will,  then  you  are  a  disciple  of  Christ. 
Disciple  means  scholar.  A  Christian  is  nothing  but  a  sinful  man 
who  has  put  himself  to  school  to  Christ  for  the  honest  purpose  of 
becoming  better. 

It  is  not  needful  that  you  should  have  a  great  deal  of  feeling. 
Willingness  to  obey  the  will  of  Christ  as  fast  as  it  is  made  known 
to  you  is  better  than  feeling.  It  is  not  necessary  for  you  to  go 
through  such  a  period  of  conviction  of  sin,  as  some  men  have. 
If  you  see  the  evil  of  your  sinful  life  enough  to  wish  to  forsake  it, 
that  is  repentance  enough  to  begin  with.  Repentance  is  good  for 
nothing  except  to  turn  away  a  man  from  evil,  and  you  need  not 
wait  for  any  more  than  will  suffice  for  that.  The  less  feeling 
there  is  required  to  effect  a  moral  revolution  the  better. 

I  would  not  have  you  wait  for  ministers,  or  ^or  Christians.  You 
can  be  a  Christian  without  help  from  either.  They  will  gladly 
help  you.  But  you  ought  not  to  lean  on  them.  Go  to  your  own 
work  at  once.  It  is  a  question  between  your  soul  and  God.  Will 
you  acknowledge  God  as  your  Father  ?  Will  you,  from  this  hour, 
make  it  your  business  to  conduct  your  whole  life  in  accordance 
with  God's  v/ill  revealed  in  the  Gospel  of  Christ  ? 

You  may  become  a  Christian  now,  and  go  home  to  your  house- 
hold, and  be  enabled  to  ask  a  blessing  at  your  table  to-day  ;  you 
may  stretch  forth  your  hands,  to  the  amazement  of  your  wife  and 
children,  and,  like  a  Christian  man,  ask  a  blessing  upon  your 
dinner,  though  it  may  be  the  first  time  in  your  life  ;  you  may  go 
home  to  night  and  begin  family  prayers  where  the  sound  of  your 


513  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

voice  In  prayer  has  never  been  heard.      I  nrge  you  to  take  that 
course,  and  to  take  it  at  once. 

The  word  of  God  requires  us  to  love  the  Lord  our  God  with  ail 
our  heart,  with  all  our  soul,  with  all  our  mind,  and  our  neighbor 
as  ourself. 

Will  you  deliberately  undertake  to  begin  your  life  over  again, 
from  this  hour,  under  this  law  ?  Will  you  undertake  to  regard 
things  as  right  or  v/rong,  as  they  agree  or  disagree  with  that  rule  ? 
Will  you  acknowledge  yourself  bound,  henceforth,  to  act  under 
that  charter  ? 

"  Can  I,  then,  do  this  by  mere  volition  ?"  Can  you  any  more 
go  down  to  the  Battery  by  volition  ?  and  yet  you  know  that  voli- 
tion will  produce  that  result.  For  a  proper  volition  always 
implies,  not  alone  a  choice  of  a  thing,  but  also  all  the  steps 
needed  to  accomplish  this  end.  To  determine  that  you  will  be 
warm,  implies  kindling  a  fire,  or  putting  on  clothing,  or  better 
yet,  active  exercise.  You  cannot  be  rich  by  wishing,  but  by 
choosing  you  can  ;  for  choosing  a  thing  always  implies  that  you 
choose  the  appropriate  means  of  obtaining  it.  And  so  every 
man  may  come  into  that  state  of  love  and  benevolence  required 
by  Christ,  if  he  will  employ  the  word  of  God,  prayer  as  the 
inspiration, and  daily  practice  in  ordinary  conduct,  as  the    means, 

"  But  can  I  suddenly,  in  a  moment,  reconstruct  my  character, 
change  my  conduct,  alter  my  relations  to  things  that  are  wrong, 
and  be  a  thorough  Christian  in  a  moment  ?"  No  ;  you  cannot  be  \ 
a  perfect  Christian  in  a  moment,  but  you  can  begin  to  be  an 
imperfect  Christian  in  a  moment.  A  man  cannot  make  a  journey 
in  an  instant,  but  he  can  begin  instantly.  A  man  cannot  cleanse 
his  hands  in  a  moment,  but  he 'can  begin  to  wash.  A  man  cannot 
reclaim  a  piece  of  land  in  an  hour,  but  he  can  begin  the  work, 
with  the  determination  to  perform  the  whole.  The  prodigal  son 
could  not  go  back  to  his  father  at  one  step,  but  he  could  deter- 
mine to  perform  the  whole  journey,  and  take  the  first  step,  and 
the  next,  and  the  next,  perseveringly,  and  in  right  good  earnest. 
Thus,  to  be  a  Christian  is  to  enter  upon  a  life  which  lias  its  imper- 
ifcct  beginning,  its  rude  development,  its  imperfections  and  mis- 
Vtakes,  its  successive  states  of  growth,  its  gradual  attainments, 
and  its  full  final  perfection  only  in  another  world. 

"  But,  is  it  right  to  call  myself  a  Christian,  when  I  do  not  do 


SPIRITUAL.  513 

everj'tliing  that  Christ  commands?"  If  you  mean  to  obey  in 
everything,  if  you  are  pained  when  you  fail,  if  you  resist  evil,  and 
seek  deliverance  from  it,  Christ  will  prove  to  you  the  most  lenient 
and  gracious  teacher  that  scholar  every  had.  A  child  is  not  ex- 
pelled from  school  for  one  poor  lesson,  nor  for  much  dulness,  nor 
for  heedlessness,  nor  for  disobedience,  if  the  teacher  knows  that, 
on  the  whole,  the  child  means  to  be  a  good  scholar,  if  he  confesses 
his  faults  and  strives  to  amend.  God  brings  up  those  who 
become  his  children  with  a  great  deal  more  patience,  a  great  deal 
more  forbearance,  and  tenderness  of  love,  than  any  mother  exer- 
cises toward  a  difficult  and  fractious  child.  No  faults  lead  her  to 
give  him  up,  so  long  as  there  is  hope  that  at  length  he  will  do 
better,  and  do  well.     And  God  is  greater  in  love  than  any  mother. 

And,  if  you  will  now  accept  this  law  of  love,  hold  yourself 
bound  by  it,  undertake  to  carry  it  out  every  day,  not  be  dis- 
couraged by  failures,  persevere  in  spite  of  imperfections,  you  shall 
find  in  Christ  such  graciousness,  such  a  forbearing  and  forgiving 
nature,  as  you  will  never  find  in  any  man. 

The  moment  that  you  realize  this  goodness  of  Christ,  his  help- 
fulness to  you,  his  lenient,  forgiving,  sympathizing  spirit,  then 
you  know  what  faith  in  Christ  means.  If  such  a  Saviour  attracts 
you  and  you  strive  all  the  more  ardently,  from  love  toward  him, 
and  trust  in  him,  then  you  are  a  Christian  :  not  a  religious  man 
merely,  but  a  Christian. 

A  man  may  worship  through  awe,  or  through  a  sense  of  duty, 
and  I  think  there  are  hundreds  of  men  in  the  churches  who  are 
only  religious  men,  and  not  Christians.  A  man  who  feels  toward 
God  only  awe  or  fear  ;  who  obeys  merely  from  a  sense  of  duty  ; 
who  is  under  the  dominion  of  conscience  rather  than  of  love,  may 
be  religious,  but  he  is  not  a  Christian.  Such  men  live  by  con- 
science, they  live  by  a  bond,  bound  by  fear.  Their  life  is  liter- 
ally one  of  service  ;  they  are  fatally  servants  of  God,  not  in  the 
sense  in  which  the  words  are  largely  used  in  the  Scriptures,  mean- 
ing simply  disciples  of  Christ,  but  they  are  most  literally  God's 
hired  men,  or  worse — God's  bondmen.  Men  must  learn  no  longer 
merely  to  fear  God,  no  longer  to  tremble  as  before  the  tyrannical 
master  of  a  despotic  government  ;  but  to  come  unto  him  through 
Jesus  Christ,  and  say,  "  Lord,  I  love  thee,  I  trust  thee,  and  T  will 
serve  thee  because  I  love  thee." 


514  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

Any  man  who  knows  enougli  to  love  his  cliildrcn,  his  father, 
mother,  brother  or  sister,  has  theolog-jcal  knowledge  enough  to 
know  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Now  the  question  is  this  :  Do  you 
choose  to  do  it  ?  If  we  were  to  put  this  question  to  any  of  you  : 
Do  you  really  choose  to  love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ?  I  suppose 
every  man  of  you  would  say,  "  I  do."  But  stop,  there  is  a  great 
distinction  between  desiring  a  thing  and  choosing  a  thing  ;  a  man 
may  desire  without  choosing.  Do  you  suppose  there  is  a  man 
in  the  Tombs  who  does  not  desire  to  be  an  honest  man  ?  But  he 
does  not  choose  to  be  ;  there  are  other  things  which  he  desires 
more  than  that  ;  he  desires  money  more  than  he  does  honesty  ; 
he  desires  the  means  of  debauchery  and  revelry  more  than  he 
does  honesty.  Probably  there  is  not  a  man  given  to  his  cups,  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  who,  if  you  should  ask  him,  "  Do  you  not 
desire  to  become  a  reformed  and  temperate  man  ?"  would  not 
say,  Yes,  He  desires  it,  but  he  does  not  choose  it  ;  there  are 
other  things  that  he  desires  more,  and  he  chooses  the  things 
which  he  desires  most. 

Ask  a  poor  ragged  vagabond,  "  Do  you  not  desire  riches  ?" 
Of  course,  he  says  he  does.  But  he  does  not  choose  it,  and  you 
cannot  make  him  choose  it  ;  he  does  desire  to  be  rich,  but  he 
desires  to  be  lazy  much  more  than  that — therefore  he  is  a  vaga- 
bond. A  man  desires  to  be  a  scholar,  but  he  does  not  choose  it, 
because  he  likes  his  leisure  much  better  than  application.  You 
desire  an  article  of  merchandise  which  you  see  along  the  street  ; 
but  when  you  inquire  the  price,  you  will  not  take  it  because  you 
desire  the  money  more.  Almost  every  man  desires  something 
which  he  does  not  choose.  We  are  full  of  desires,  but  we  only 
choose  those  things  for  the  possession  of  which  we  are  willing  to 
deny  the  solicitation  of  all  antagonistic  desires.  That  man  who 
is  willing  to  forego  everything  that  stands  in  the  way  of  the 
object  which  he  desires,  that  man  only  can  be  said  to  have 
chosen  it. 

Now  I  put  the  question  to  you.  Do  you  desire  the  love  of 
Christ  ?  Do  you  desire  it  more  than  you  do  your  pleasures,  more 
than  ambition,  more  than  selfish  indulgences  ?  Are  you  willing 
to  say  before  God,  I  desire  it  more  than  all  things  in  the  world  ? 
If  you  do,  I  know  not  why  you  should  not  at  once  begin  to  be  a 
Christian.     You  are  competent  to  choose  your  business  ;  you  do 


SPIRITUAL.  515 

not  need  to  ask  any  lawyers,  doctors  or  ministers  in  order  to  do 
that.  You  are  competent  to  choose  your  own  course  of  Ufe  ; 
you  are  competent  to  choose  your  own  pleasures,  and  you  never 
think  of  asking  of  others  how  to  secure  them.  Why  do  you  not 
stand  upon  your  own  power — or  rather  upon  God's  power,  which 
woiks  within  yours — and  become  a  Christian  by  your  own  voli- 
tion, just  as  you  become  a  lawyer,  a  physician,  a  merchant,  a 
traveller,  a  scholar  ? 

Why  do  you  not  take  three  minutes  of  this  sovereign  power  of 
choice,  to  become  a  Christian  ?  A  man  perhaps  will  say,  "  I 
desire  to  make  that  choice  to-day."  What  he  ought  to  say  is 
this  :  "  1  make  the  choice.  I  make  it  now,  and  forever.  I  do 
in  the  presence  of  Almighty  God,  with  all  my  soul  determine 
that  I  will,  through  the  love  of  Christ,  make  his  wish  the 
supreme  law  of  ray  life  within  and  without.  Not  only  in  my 
relation  directly  to  God,  but  in  all  my  conduct  toward  my  fellow- 
men,  I  wiU  be  governed  by  the  revealed  wish  and  law  of  God. 
Trusting  to  his  mercy  for  pardon  in  all  things  wherein  I  come 
short,  and  depending  on  him  for  strength,  I  will  make  my  work 
his  work,  and  try  like  Jesus  to  find  my  meat  and  drink  in  doing 
God's  holy  will."  Who  of  you  can  solemnly  promise  this  before 
God  ?  Look  at  it  all  around  and  decide.  Who  can  say,  not  that 
he  will  not  be  imperfect  in  carrying  it  out,  but  who  can  say, 
"  That  is  to  be  my  idea  of  life,  that  is  to  be  my  model,  after 
which  I  am  this  hour  and  henceforth  forever  to  strive  "  ?  Is 
there  a  man  who  can  take  that  step  ?  But,  you  say,  "  a  man  may 
take  that  stop,  and  may  become  by  mere  choice  a  Christian  in 
that  way  ;  but  there  is  no  love  springs  up — there  is  no  grace  in 
his  heart  or  soul  ;  and  how  is  he  to  have  that  peace,  that  joy,  that 
rest,  that  we  hear  Christians  talking  about  ?  In  other  words,  how 
is  a  man  to  have  in  his  soul  the  sweet  sense  that  his  power  is  not 
in  himself,  but  of  Christ  ?"  I  answer,  the  Lord  will  send  that 
— but  in  his  own  way  and  tirne.      Leave  it  to  him. 

If  feeling  comes  first,  let  it  come.  But  do  not  wait  for  it. 
Move  on.  Follow  your  decision  upon  the  path  of  duty,  and  you 
will  by  and  by  have  all  the  feeling  you  need.  Jesus  Christ  sits  on 
the  throne  of  the  universe  for  the  very  purpose  of  giving  sym- 
pathy and  effectual  help  to  every  man  who  says,  "  Lord,  I  am 
needy  ;  Lord,  I  am  bestormed  and  out  of  my  course,  and  I  come 


516  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

to  tliee  for  sympathy  and  assistance."  Upon  that  ground  we  are 
to  look  to  Christ  ;  we  have  the  power  to  choose  him,  and,  if  we 
do,  we  shall  feel  that  mighty  love,  that  conscious  sympathy  and 
presence,  that  power  of  God  upon  the  heart  of  every  man,  which 
shall  give  him  peace  and  joy.  If  you  doubt,  come  unto  Christ 
and  you  shall  know  whether  it  does  not  make  you  blessed.  This 
willingness  on  your  part,  this  faith  in  Christ,  is  the  element  that 
shall  bring  you  in  the  right  direction,  to  a  consciousness  of  peace 
in  Jesus  Christ.  But  the  great  trouble  is,  I  think,  that  you  do 
not  wish  to  be  Christians  so  much  as  you  wish  other  things. 

One  of  the  most  memorable  things  that  took  place  last  winter 
was  the  opening  of  a  place  as  an  eating-house,  free  to  the  hungry, 
in  one  of  the  streets  of  this  city.  The  kind  actor  in  this  charity 
thought  that  he  had  no  better  way  to  use  his  money  than  to  feed 
the  hungry  and  the  poor  ;  so  he  opened  a  room  and  made  this  dec- 
laration :  "  If  any  are  hungry,  here  is  food  for  them  ;  let  them 
come  and  cat."  Now,  in  the  case  of  certain  grades  of  men, 
there  was  no  trouble  about  it.  The  man  vvho  was  in  the  ditch, 
and  so  low  that  he  knew  that  he  was  a  miserable,  degraded  creat- 
ure, would  scramble  up  quickly  when  he  heard  of  this  place  ;  run 
to  it  and  betake  himself  to  the  food  with  almost  indecent  haste. 
And  the  man  who  had  been  dodging  around  from  one  expedient 
to  another,  till  now  he  was  nearly  famished  and  did  not  know 
where  to  go  to  keep  from  starvation,  hears  that  here  there  were 
great,  bountiful  rounds  of  beef  and  glorious  loaves  of  bread,  any 
quantity,  indeed,  of  provision,  and  away  he  runs  to  see  if  it  was 
really  so  ;  he  would  not  talk  much,  or  preach  much,  but  he 
would  practise  a  great  deal  ;  for,  let  me  tell  you  that  your  hungry 
men  care  very  little  for  the  theory  of  eating  or  digestion.  It  is 
the  practice  which  they  dote  upon. 

But  here  comes  a  man  who  has  been  more  respectable  ;  he  has 
lived  in  genteel  society  and  given  dinner  parties  in  his  prosperous 
days  ;  the  times  have  been  rather  hard  upon  him,  but  he  expects 
that  the  spring  will  set  him  up  all  right  again  ;  he  has  been 
home  with  everybody  who  asked  him  to  eat,  has  been  to 
everybody's  house  but  his  own,  for  there  was  nothing  to  eat 
there  ;  he  has  borrowed  all  the  money  he  could,  but  now  no  one 
asks  him  to  dine,  and  he  can  borrow  no  more.  He  has  gone  to 
bed  hungry  at  night,  and  oh  !  what  dreams  he  has  had  out  of  that 


SPIRITUAL.  517 

gnawing  stomach  ;  he  wakes  up  in  the  morning  and  says  to  him- 
self, "  I  wonder  where  I  can  get  any  breakfast  ?"  He  thinks  to 
be  sure  of  that  dining-saloon  just  opened,  where  there  is  plenty 
of  food  to  be  had  for  nothing  ;  but  he  says,  "  I  cannot  go  down 
there,  I  cannot  humble  myself  so  much  ;  I,  who  have  been  able, 
and  in  the  habit  of  giving  charity,  to  go  down  there  and  get  my 
food,  and  become  a  beggar  ?  I  can't  do  that  !"  So,  he  wanders 
about  till  noon,  and  though  the  hunger  gnaws  at  his  stomach,  and 
he  is  faint  and  weary,  he  will  not  go  in  yet,  so  he  wanders  on  till 
about  sundown. 

But  at  sundown  he  says  to  himself — and  hunger  is  an  excellent 
logician — "  After  all,  am  I  not  acting  foolishly  ?  I  am  so  weak 
I  can  hardly  stand,  and  it  does  seem  to  me  that  I  cannot  sleep  to- 
night for  the  gnawings  of  hunger.  Oh,  how  I  want  this  food  ;  I 
think  I  will  just  go  down  the  street."  So  away  he  goes,  like  a 
great  many  men  who  have  come  in  here  to-day,  saying  that  they 
just  came  in  to  see  what  was  going  on,  but  who  know  that  down 
deep  in  their  own  hearts  there  is  something  else  beside  curiosity 
which  they  cannot  resist.  Well,  away  he  goes  down  the  street, 
and  looks  in  to  see  who  is  there  ;  then  he  watches  to  see  if  any- 
body is  looking  at  him,  or  if  anybody  knows  him  ;  he  goes  away 
and  Avalks  up  the  square,  but  he  is  reminded  frojn  within  that  he 
had  better  come  back  again.  This  time  he  walks  right  by  the 
door,  and  looks  in  askance  to  see  if  anybody  is  in  there  ;  he  hears 
the  cheerful  noise  of  the  knives  and  forks,  smells  the  wholesome 
food,  hears  the  laughter  of  joyful  men,  hungry  men  doing  work 
meet  for  hunger.  Now,  suppose  that,  as  he  stands  there,  he 
should  see,  among  those  going  down,  the  butcher  and  baker 
loaded  with  great  piles  of  meat  and  bread,  and  should  stop  them 
to  say  :  "  I  am  almost  dead  with  hunger,  I  have  been  invited  here 
to  take  something  to  eat,  but  before  I  go  down  I  should  like  to 
know  the  precise  process  by  which  flour  is  made  into  bread  !"  — 
just  as  men  come  to  me,  wishing  me  to  explain  to  them  the 
doctrines  of  justification,  sovereignty,  atonement,  and  other 
things,  when  they  are  dying  for  want  of  Christ's  loving  help  !  So 
this  man  stops  the  baker  to  ask  him  how  bread  is  made,  but  the 
butcher  and  the  baker  step  in  with  their  load. 

He  listens  again  to  the  cheerful  music  of  the  rattling  dishes — 
and  there  is  no  such  music  to  a  hungry  man's  ear,   and  says,  "  I 


518  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

cau't  go  in  yet  ;  I  am  not  satisfied  as  to  the  way  these  things  are 
made."  So  he  walks  away,  but  hunger  gives  him  another  turn, 
and  back  he  goes  and  looks  in  again,  and  says,  "If  it  wasn't  for 
— if  it  wasn't  for — "  then  he  looks  up  the  street  to  see  if  any- 
body is  looking  at  him,  and  says,  "  I  will  just  go  down  one  step." 
He  steps  down,  and  the  attraction  is  so  great  that  he  goes  in  ; 
nobody  seems  to  know  him,  nobody  seems  surprised  ;  he  reaches 
out  his  hand  and  takes  hold  of  a  dry  crust,  and  the  tears  come 
into  his  eyes  as  he  puts  it  into  his  mouth.  Oh,  how  sweet  it  is  ! 
With  that  he  sits  right  down  and  makes  a  feast,  and  as  he  rises 
up  again,  he  says  to  himself,  "  Oh,  what  a  fool  I  was,  that  I  did 
not  come  long  before  and  often."  Are  there  not  just  such  fools 
in  this  congregation  ?  You  go  up  and  down,  to  and  fro,  before 
Christ's  table,  when  there  is  bread  that  will  cause  that  hunger  to 
cease  forever,  and  water  drawn  from  the  river  that  comes  from 
God's  throne  ;  and  yet  you  have  gone  back,  thinking  wliatyour  wife 
would  say,  what  your  father  would  say,  what  your  partner  would 
say,  what  your  gay  companions  would  say.  But  you  feel  the 
gnawings  of  hunger,  and,  as  you  look  at  the  spread  table,  you 
say,  "  Oh,  how  we  need  this  food,  but  we  dare  not  come  and  take 
it."  Oh,  it  is  shame,  pride,  or  fear,  that  keeps  you  thus  back. 
Oh,  if  there  was  only  hunger  enough  to  bring  you  to  the  right 
point,  then,  having  once  tasted,  you  would  rise  up  from  that 
feast,  with  the  blessed  assurance  that  yet  once  again  you  should 
sit  down  at  a  still  nobler  table,  at  the  marriage  supper  of  the 
Lamb  ! 

Now,  if  there  are  any  in  this  congregation  that  have  seen  the 
bounty  spread  forth  in  the  love  of  Christ,  which  they  can  have 
"  without  money^  and  without  price,"  as  promised  by  Jesus 
Chi-ist,  do  not  let  them  wait  for  somebody  to  explain  it  any  more. 
Try  it  yourselves  to-day  ! 

I  am  ashamed  of  myself,  often,  to  be  an  object  of  more  faith 
than  my  Saviour  ;  yet  I  have  persons  coming  to  me  every  day  of 
my  life,  with  their  wants  and  troubles,  instead  of  going  to  Christ. 
How  eagerly  they  believe  every  statement  I  make  ;  how  they 
hang  upon  my  sympathy,  and  hope  I  will  let  them  come  again  to- 
morrow. I  say  to  myself,  if  you  would  only  come  to  Christ  with 
half  the  faith  that  brings  you  to  mc,  you  might  be  rejoicing  in  half 
an  hour.     Suppose  now,  that  instead  of  a  man   sinful  and  erring 


SPIRITUAL.  519 

like  yourselves,  3-ou  should  put  in  my  place  tlie  august  form  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  full  of  benignity,  glorious  with  goodness, 
and  with  a  sweetness  that  is  more  than  any  mother  ever  knew  for 
her  darling  child,  waiting  patiently,  bending  over  you  and  saying, 
"  Come  unto  me  and  take  my  yoke  upon  you  ;"  "  learn  of  me 
and  ye  shall  find  rest  to  your  souls,"  "  for  he  that  cometh  unto 
me  I  will  in  no  wise  cast  out."  Suppose  you  should  hear  Jesus 
Christ  saying,  "  I  have  been  out  to  seek  and  search  for  lost  men, 
and  I  have  found  you,  and  I  am  j^ersuading  you  to  come  to  me  ; 
believe  me  that  I  love  you,  that  I  love  you  now,"  If  there  is  a 
man  that  has  one  thought  toward  God,  it  is  because  the  love  of 
God  is  drawing  him  sympathetically  to  himself.  It  is  a  blessed 
thought  that  Jesus  Christ  is  longing  for  you,  and  I  would  that  you 
might  turn  still  more  earnestly  to  Jesus  Christ  and  say,  "  Lord,  I 
believe  thee,  I  believe  thou  lovest  me  ;  I  believe  thou  desirest  to 
make  me  thine,  and  from  this  hour  it  shall  be  the  object  of  my 
life  to  please  thee,  and  the  one  firm  object  of  my  live  to  serve 
thee."  Will  you  try  the  effect  of  that  vow,  some  of  you,  to- 
day ?     Try  it  at  once,  even  now,  while  I  am  speaking. 

I  always  feel  most  for  those  who  are  furthest  from  grace, 
perhaps,  because  I  see  in  them  some  likeness  to  myself.  But  my 
Master  also  had  a  special  regard  for  such.  One  of  the  most 
touching  things  in  the  life  of  Christ,  is  the  way  in  which  the 
wretched  looked  at  him.  The  literary,  the  philosophical,  the 
lich,  the  great  political  men  of  that  day  did  not  think  much  of 
Christ  ;  but  he  had  such  a  sweet  way  of  carrying  himself  in  all 
Jerusalem,  that  whenever  he  went  into  a  house  to  sit  down  and 
rest,  all  the  vagabonds  and  wretches  came  round  about  him,  as 
though  he  was  their  patron.  They  felt  "  somebody  cares  for  me  ; 
somebody,  instead  of  thumping  me  with  a  truncheon,  instead  of 
putting  my  hands  in  manacles,  loves  and  cares  for  me."  They 
did  not  know  what  to  make  of  the  quiet,  gentle  effect  of  the 
character  of  Christ  ;  and  wherever  he  went  all  manner  of  wicked 
men  poured  round  about  him.  Such  was  his  sweetness  that  all 
the  wretched  and  miserable  came  to  see  him  ;  such  was  the 
impression  he  made  upon  the  lowest  class  in  Jerusalem.  Why 
should  we  not  all  be  like  him  ? 

Whenever  I  know  of  a  man  that  nobody  else  prays  for,  it 
seems  as  if  my  heart  would  break  for  him.     If  I  hear  of  a  man 


520  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

that  has  broken  away  from  all  instruction,  instead  of  saying,  "  he 
is  a  devil,  I  would  much  rather  say  he  is  my  brother,  and  1  must 
heartily  pray  for  him."  When  I  walk  up  Broadway,  'tis  a  pain 
to  me  to  look  up  and  down  the  street  and  see  so  many,  with 
apparently  nobody  to  care  for  their  souls.  Now,  if  there  is  in 
this  house  to-day  any  man  who  is  wicked  and  degraded  ;  if  there 
is  any  man  who  sells  rum — and  that  makes  about  as  bad  a  man 
as  can  be  in  this  world — I  don't  say  this  to  hurt  your  feel- 
ings, but  because,  as  a  servant  of  Christ,  I  must  talk  plainly 
to  every  man — if  there  is  a  man  in  this  congregation  that  has 
gotten  his  living  by  stealing,  from  the  most  vulgar  form  of  steal- 
ing up  to  the  most  respectable,  genteel  way  in  which  so-called 
honest  men  steal,  and  call  it  financiering  ;  if  there  arc  any  who 
live  in  any  way  discreditably  in  the  eye  of  the  world  or  in  the 
eye  of  God  ;  any  who  make  catering  to  lust  or  passion  their 
means  of  livelihood  ;  if  there  are  any  who  have  stood  upon  these 
boards,  not  to  instruct,  but  simply  to  amuse  or  degrade  their  fellow- 
men  ;.  actors,  managers,  or  any  others — give  me  your  hand,  you 
are  my  brethren  !  It  is  the  blood  of  Christ  that  makes  you  and 
me  related,  which  is  more  precious  than  the  blood  of  your  father 
or  my  father.  My  soul  goes  out  for  you  ;  and  I  long  that  you 
should  know  how  Christ  feels  for  you.  Oh  !  wandering  sheep, 
be  not  ye  lost  !  Christ  calls  to  you  by  my  voice.  He  sends  me 
here  to  say  to  some  man  who  is  on  the  point  of  decision,  but  who 
thinks  it  is  of  no  use  to  try  to  be  good  any  longer — drink,  per- 
haps, may  be  taking  you  down  ;  or  your  passions  are  dragging 
you  down,  and  do  not  know  how  to  resist  the  insidious  pleasures 
which  surround  you  ;  or  your  companions  are  taking  you  down, 
and  nobody,  as  you  think,  cares  for  you — nobody  prays  for  you 
or  gives  you  instruction.  Yes,  there  is  one  man  who  does — I 
care  for  you  ;  not  out  of  my  own  nature,  but  because  the  spirit  of 
my  Master  makes  me  thus  care  for  your  soul.  He  sent  me  to  tell 
you  that  He — glorious  as  He  is — that  He  cares  for  you  ten  thou- 
sand times  more  than  I  do.  He  loves  you — He  longs  for  you  ; 
and  there  shall  not  be  one  man  who  makes  one  faint  motion 
toward  a  better  life  whom  He  will  not  stand  ready  to  receive. 
He  shall  send  forth  the  angels,  saying  unto  them,  "  Take  care  of 
that  man,  and  bear  him  up  lest  at  any  time  he  dash  his  foot 
against  a  stone." 


SPIRITUAL.  521 

But,  let  me  tell  you,  in  this  matter  you  inust  be  in  earnest  ;  you 
must  be  thoroughly  resolved.  Prayers  have  this  morning  been 
asked  in  your  hearing  for  a  Christian  woman  who,  at  the  peril  of 
life,  has  Hed  from  slavery.  Now,  I  want  to  know  if  there  is  a 
man  in  this  congregation  who  desires  to  get  rid  of  his  sins  as 
much  as  this  poor  woman  did  to  get  rid  of  her  slavery  ?  She  was 
willing  to  put  her  life  in  her  hand,  and,  for  days,  without  food, 
without  drink,  to  seek  for  liberty  as  for  her  very  life. 

Is  there  a  slave  in  this  congregation  ?  A  slave  to  Satan  or  to 
his  own  passions  ?  Is  there  any  who  wants  to  escape  as  much 
as  this  poor  woman  did  ?  AYho  strikes  for  liberty  in  Jesus 
Christ  ?  Who  desires  to  say  to-day,  not  about  one  habit,  but  of 
all  bad  habits,  "  I  desire  to  reform — I  will  reform  '"?  It  is  easier 
to  reform  all  at  once  than  it  is  to  reform  one  thing  at  a  time.  It 
a  man  wishes  to  wash  a  spot,  big  as  a  penny,  clean  on  a  dirty 
hand,  he  will  find  it  much  easier  to  wash  the  whole  hand  than 
that  one  spot.  This  gradual  repentance  is  like  a  man  who  wants 
to  be  taken  out  from  a  burning  building,  but  who  says  to  those 
about  him,  "  Xow,  don't  take  me  out  too  suddenly  ;  take  me 
down  first  to  a  room  where  it  is  not  quite  so  hot  as  it  is  here  ;  and 
then  to  another  room,  where  there  is  still  less  heat,  and  so  take 
me  out  gradually."  Why,  the  man  would  be  a  cinder  before  you 
got  him  out  !  A  man  who  wants  to  reform  should  reform 
perpendicularly  !  If  you  mean  to  quit  drinking,  quit  it  at  once, 
and  become  a  Christian  !  If  you  want  to  be  an  honest  man,  go 
to  God  !  Begin  there.  It  is  easier  to  reform  any  vice  by  becom- 
ing a  Christian  at  once,  than  to  attempt  it  from  a  lower  motive. 
Take  upon  you  the  highest  bond  of  truth  !  A  man  who  tries  to 
reform  without  the  help  of  God,  is  like  the  man  who  tries  to 
breathe  without  air.  Now,  is  there  any  man  here  who  seeks  for 
reform  ? — there  is  hope  for  you  ;  there  is  prayer  for  you  ;  and 
better  than  that,  there  is  God  for  you — there  is  Christ  for  you  ! 
I  hope  and  desire  that  in  consequence  of  these  remarks,  some  man 
who  has  been  bound  in  sin  may  be  converted.  Who  shall  it  be  ? 
Shall  it  be  you  ?     Some  of  you  whose  friends  have  been  laboring 

for  you,    SHALL  IT  NOT  BE  YOU  ? 


POLITICAL. 


SPEECH  IN  LONDON. 

Of  the  circumstances  attending  the  speech  in  London,  given 
below,  the  last  of  Mr.  Beecher's  historic  orations  in  England,  a  full 
account  has  been  given  in  the  preceding  chapters,  both  by  Mr. 
Beecher  himself  and  by  others  who  were  present.  It  is  enough 
here  to  say  that  the  meeting  was  held  in  Exeter  Hall  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Emancipation  Society,  that  it  was  crowded  to  its 
utmost  capacity,  and  that  it  was  presided  over  by  the  Chamberlain 
of  London,  while  on  the  platform  were  a  number  of  distinguished 
Englishmen,  both  clergymen  and  laymen.  There  is  room  here 
only  for  a  part  of  this  speech,  which  is  printed  here  both  to  indi- 
cate the  character  of  Mr.  Beecher's  English  speeches,  and  also  the 
general  characteristics  of  his  political  addresses. 

As  this  is  my  last  public  address  upon  the  American  question  in 
England,  I  may  be  permitted  to  glance  briefly  at  my  course  here. 
(Hear,  hear.)  At  Manchester  I  attempted  to  give  a  history  of 
the  external  political  movement  for  fifty  years  past,  so  far  as  it 
was  necessary  to  illustrate  the.  fact  that  the  present  American  war 
was  only  an  overt  and  warlike  form  of  a  contest  between  liberty 
and  slavery  that  had  been  going  on  politically  for  half  a  century. 
(Hear,  hear.)  At  Glasgow  I  undertook  to  show  the  condition  of 
work  or  labor  necessitated  by  any  profitable  system  of  slavery, 
demonstrating  that  it  brought  into  contempt,  aftixing  to  it  the 
badge  of  degradation,  and  that  a  struggle  to  extend  servile  labor 
across  the  American  continent  interests  every  free  working-man  on 
the  globe.  (Cheers.)  For  my  sincere  belief  is  that  the  Southern 
cause  is  the  natural  enemy  of  free  labor  and  the  laborer  all  the 
world   over.      (Loud   cheers.)     In    Edinburgh    T    endeavored    to 


POLITICAL.  523 

sketch  how,  out  of  separate  colonies  and  states  intensely  jealous 
of  their  individual  sovereignty,  there  grew  up  and  was  finally 
established  a  nation,  and  how  in  that  Nation  of  United  States, 
two  distinct  and  antagonistic  systems  were  developed  and  strove 
for  the  guidance  of  the  national  policy,  which  struggle  at  length 
passed  and  the  North  gained  the  control.  Thereupon  the  South 
abandoned  the  Union  simply  and  solely  because  the  Government 
was  in  future  to  be  administered  by  men  who  would  give  their 
whole  influence  to  freedom.  (Loud  cheers.)  In  Liverpool  I 
labored,  under  difficulties — (laughter '  and  cheers) — to  show  that 
slaverj'  in  the  long  run  was  as  hostile  to  commerce  and  to  manu- 
facturers all  the  world  over,  as  it  was  to  free  interests  in  human 
society — (cheers) — that  a  slave  nation  must  be  a  poor  customer, 
buying  the  fewest  and  poorest  goods,  and  the  least  profitable  to 
the  producers — (hear,  hear)  — that  it  was  the  interest  of  every 
manufacturing  country  to  promote  freedom,  intelligence,  and 
wealth  among  all  nations — (cheers) — that  this  attempt  to  cover 
the  fairest  portion  cf  the  earth  with  a  slave  population  that  buys 
next  to  nothing  should  array  against  it  every  true  political  econo- 
mist and  every  thoughtful  and  far-seeing  manufacturer,  as  tending 
to  strike  at  the  vital  want  of  commerce — which  is  not  cotton,  but 
rich  customers.  (Cheers.)  I  have  endeavored  to  enlist  against 
this  flagitious  wickedness,  and  the  great  civil  war  which  it  has 
kindled,  the  judgment,  conscience,  and  interests  of  the  British 
people.  (Cheers.)  I  am  aware  that  a  popular  address  before 
an  excited  audience  more  or  less  affected  by  party  sympathies  is 
not  the  most  favorable  method  of  doing  justice  to  these  momen- 
tous topics  ;  and  there  have  been  some  other  circumstances  which 
made  it  yet  more  diflacult  to  present  a  careful  or  evenly  balanced 
statement  ;  but  I  shall  do  the  best  I  can  to  leave  no  vestige  of 
doubt  that  slavery  was  the  cause — the  only  cause — the  whole 
cause — of  this  gigantic  and  cruel  war.  (Cheers.)  I  have  tried 
to  show  that  sympathy  for  the  South,  however  covered  by  excuses 
or  softened  by  sophistry,  is  simply  sympathy  with  an  audacious 
attempt  to  build  up  a  slave  empire  pure  and  simple.  (Hear,  hear.) 
I  have  tried  to  show  that  in  this  contest  the  North  were  contend- 
ing for  the  preservation  of  their  Government  and  their  own  terri- 
tory, and  those  popular  institutions  on  which  the  well-being  of 
the  nation  depended.      (Hear,  hear.)     So  far,  I  have  spoken  to 


524  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

the  English  from  an  English  point  of  view.  To-night  I  ask  you 
to  look  at  this  struggle  from  an  American  point  of  view,  and  in 
its  moral  aspects.  (Hear,  hear.)  That  is,  I  wish  you  to  take  our 
stand-point  for  a  little  while — (cheers) — and  to  look  at  our  actions 
and  motives,  not  from  what  the  enemy  say,  but  from  what  we 
say.  (Cheers.)  When  two  men  have  disagreed,  you  seldom 
promote  peace  between  them  by  attempting  to  prove  that  either 
of  them  is  all  right  or  either  of  them  is  all  wrong.  (Hear,  hear.) 
Now  there  has  been  some  disagreement  of  feeling  between  Ameri- 
ca and  Great  Britain.  I  don't  want  to  argue  the  question  to- 
night which  is  right  and  which  is  wrong,  but  if  some  kind  neigh- 
bor will  persuade  two  people  that  are  at  disagreement  to  consider 
each  other's  position  and  circumstances,  it  may  not  lead  either  to 
adopting  the  other's  judgment,  but  it  may  lead  them  to  say  of 
each  other,  "  I  think  he  is  honest  and  means  well,  even  if  he  be 
mistaken."  (Loud  cheers.)  You  may  not  thus  get  a  settlement 
of  the  difficult)/,  but  you  will  get  a  settlement  of  the  quarrel. 
(Hear,  hear.)  I  merely  ask  you  to  put  yourselves  in  our  track  for 
one  hour,  and  look  at  the  objects  as  we  look  at  them — (cheers) — 
after  that,  form  your  judgment  as  you  please.  (Cheers.)  The  first 
and  earliest  form  in  which  the  conflict  took  place  between  North 
and  South  was  purely  moral.  It  was  a  conflict  simply  of  opinion 
and  of  truths  by  argument  ;  and  by  appeal  to  the  moral  sense  it 
was  sought  to  persuade  the  slaveholder  to  adopt  some  plan  of 
emancipation.  (Hear,  hear.)  AVhen  this  seemed  to  the  South- 
ern sensitiveness  unjust  and  insulting,  it  led  many  in  the  North  to 
silence,  especially  as  the  South  seemed  to  apologize  for  slavery 
rather  than  defend  it  against  argument.  It  was  said,  "  The  evil 
is  upon  us  ;  we  cannot  help  it.  We  are  sullied,  but  it  is  a 
misfortune  rather  than  a  fault.  (Cheers.)  It  is  not  right  for  the 
North  to  meddle  with  that  which  is  made  worse  by  being  meddled 
with,  even  by  argument  or  appeal."  That  was  the  earlier  portion 
of  the  conflict.  A  great  many  men  were  deceived  by  it.  I  never 
myself  yielded  to  the  fallacy.  As  a  minister  of  the  gospel  preach- 
ing to  sinful  men,  I  thought  it  my  duty  not  to  give  in  to  this 
doctrine  ;  their  sins  were  on  them,  and  I  thought  it  my  duty  not 
to  soothe  them,  but  rather  to  expose  them.  (Cheers.)  The  next 
stage  of  the  conflict  was  purely  political.  The  South  was  attempt- 
ing to   extend   their   slave   system   into    the   Territoiics,    and   to 


POLITICAL.  525 

prevent  free  States  from  covering  tlie  continent,  by  bringing  into 
the  Union  a  slave  state  for  every  free  state.  It  was  also  the 
design  and  endeavor  of  the  South  not  simply  to  hold  and  employ 
the  enormous  power  and  influence  of  the  Central  Executive,  but 
also  to  engraft  into  the  whole  Federal  Government  a  slave  state 
jiolicy.  They  meant  to  fill  all  offices  at  home  and  abroad  with 
men  loyal  to  slavery — to  shut  up  the  road  to  political  preferment 
against  men  who  had  aspirations  for  freedom,  and  to  corrupt  the 
young  and  ambitious  by  obliging  them  to  swear  fealty  to  slavery 
as  the  condition  of  success.  I  am  saying  what  I  know.  I  have 
seen  the  progressive  corruption  of  men  naturally  noble,  educated 
in  the  doctrine  of  liberty,  who,  being  bribed  by  political  offices, 
at  last  bowed  the  knee  to  Moloch.  The  South  pursued  a  uniform 
system  of  bribing  and  corrupting  ambitious  men  of  Northern 
consciences.  A  far  more  dangerous  part  of  its  policy  was  to 
change  the  Constitution,  not  overtly,  not  by  external  aggression — 
worse,  to  fill  the  courts  with  Southern  judges — (shame) — until, 
first  by  laws  of  Congress  passed  through  Southern  influence, 
secondly,  by  the  construction  and  adjudication  of  the  courts,  the 
Constitution  having  become  more  and  more  tied  up  to  Southern 
principles,  the  North  would  have  to  submit  to  slavery,  or  else  to 
oppose  it  by  violating  the  law  and  Constitution  as  construed  by 
servile  judges.  (Hear,  hear.)  They  were,  in  short,  little  by 
little,  injecting  the  laws.  Constitution,  and  policy  of  the  country 
with  the  poison  and  blood  of  slavery.      (Cheers.) 

[After  quoting  from  a  speech  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens  in 
corroboration  of  his  position,  Mr.  Beecher  proceeded  as  follows.] 

Now,  take  notice  first,  that  the  North,  hating  slavery,  having 
rid  itself  of  it  at  its  own  cost,  and  longing  for  its  extinction 
throughout  America,  was  unable  until  this  war  to  touch  slavery 
directly.  The  North  could  only  contend  against  slave  policy — 
not  directly  against  slavery.  Why  ?  Because  slavery  was  not 
the  creature  of  national  law,  and  therefore  not  subject  to  national 
jurisprudence,  but  of  State  law,  and  subject  only  to  State  jurisdic- 
tion. A  direct  act  on  the  part  of  the  North  to  abolish  slavery 
would  have  been  revolutionary.  (A  voice  :  "  We  do  not  under- 
stand you.")  You  will  imderstand  me  before  I  have  done  with 
you  to-night.  (Cheers.)  Such  an  attack  would  have  been  a  vio- 
lation of  the  fundamental  principle  of  State  independence.  This 
32 


526  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

peculiar  structure  of  our  Government  is  not  so  unintelligible  to 
Englishmen  as  you  may  tbink.  It  is  only  taking  an  English  idea 
on  a  larger  scale.  We  have  borrowed  it  from  you.  A  great 
many  do  not  understand  how  it  is  that  there  should  be  State 
independence  under  a  National  Government.  Now  I  am  not 
closely  acquainted  with  your  affairs,  but  the  Chamberlain  can  tell 
you  if  I  am  wrong,  when  I  say,  that  there  belong  to  the  old  city 
of  London  certain  private  rights  that  Parliament  cannot  meddle 
with.  Yet  there  are  elements  in  which  Parliament — that  is,  the 
will  of  the  nation — is  as  supreme  over  London  as  over  any  town 
or  city  of  the  realm.  Now,  if  there  are  some  things  which 
London  has  kept  for  her  own  judgment  and  will,  and  yet  others 
which  she  has  given  up  to  the  national  will,  you  have  herein  the 
principle  of  the  American  Government — (cheers) — by  which  local 
matters  belong  exclusively  to  the  local  jurisdiction,  and  certain 
general  matters  to  the  National  Government.  I  will  give  you 
another  illustration  that  will  bring  it  home  to  you.  There  is  not 
a  street  in  London,  but,  as  soon  as  a  man  is  inside  his  house  he 
may  say,  his  house  is  his  castle.  There  is  no  law  in  the  realm 
which  can  lay  down  to  that  man  how  many  members  shall 
compose  his  family — how  he  shall  dress  his  children — when  they 
shall  get  up  and  when  they  shall  go  to  bed — how  many  meals  he 
shall  have  a  day,  and  of  what  those  meals  shall  be  constituted. 
The  interior  economy  of  the  house  belongs  to  the  members  of  the 
house,  yet  there  are  many  respects  in  which  every  householder  is 
held  in  check  by  common  rights.  They  have  their  own  interior 
and  domestic  economy,  yet  they  share  in  other  things  which  are 
national  and  governmental.  It  may  be  very  wrong  to  give  chil- 
dren opium,  but  all  the  doctors  in  London  cannot  say  to  a  man 
that  he  shall  not  drug  his  child.  Tt  is  his  business,  and  if  it  is 
wrong  it  cannot  be  interfered  with.  I  will  give  you  another  illus- 
tration. Five  men  form  a  partnership  of  business.  Now,  that 
partnership  represents  the  National  Government  of  the  United 
States  ;  but  it  has  relation  only  to  certain  great  commercial 
interests  common  to  them  all.  But  each  of  these  five  men  has 
another  sphere — his  family — and  in  that  sphere  the  man  may  be  a 
drunkard,  a  gambler,  a  lecherous  and  indecent  man,  but  the  firm 
cannot  meddle  with  his  morals.  I  cannot  touch  anything  but 
business  interests  that  belong  to  the  firm.     Now,  our  States  came 


POLITICAL.  527 

together  on  this  doctrine — that  each  State,  in  respect  to  those 
rights  and  institutions  that  were  local  and  peculiar  to  it,  was  to 
have  undivided  sovereignty  over  its  own  affairs  ;  but  that  all  those 
powers,  such  as  taxes,  wars,  treaties  of  peace,  which  belong  to 
one  State  and  are  common  to  all  States  went  into  the  General 
Government.  The  General  Government  never  had  the  power — the 
power  was  never  delegated  to  it — to  meddle  with  the  interior  and 
domestic  economy  of  the  States,  and  it  never  could  be  done. 
You  will  ask  what  are  we  doing  it  for  now  ?  I  will  tell  you  in  due 
time.  Have  I  made  that  point  plain  ?  (Cheers. )  It  was  only 
that  part  of  slavery  which  escaped  from  the  State  jurisdiction  and 
which  entered  into  the  national  sphere  which  formed  the  subject 
of  controversy.  We  could  not  justly  touch  the  Constitution  of 
the  States,  but  only  the  policy  of  the  National  Government  that 
came  out  beyond  the  State  and  appeared  in  Congress  and  in  the 
Territories.  (Cheers.)  We  are  bound  to  abide  by  our  fundamen- 
tal law.  Honor,  fidelity,  integrity,  as  well  as  patriotism,  required 
us  to  abide  by  that  law.  The  great  conflict  between  the  South 
and  North,  until  this  war  began,  was,  which  should  control  the 
Federal  or  Central  Government  and  what  we  call  the  Territories  ; 
that  is,  lands  which  are  the  property  of  the  Union,  and  have  not 
yet  received  State  rights.  (Cheers.)  That  was  the  conflict.  It 
was  not  "  Emancipation  "  or  "  No  Emancipation  ;"  Government 
had  no  business  with  that  question.  Before  the  war,  the  only 
thing  on  which  politically  the  free  people  of  the  North  and  South 
took  their  respective  sides  was,  "  Shall  the  National  policy  be 
free  or  slave?"  And  I  call  you  to  witness  that  forbearance, 
though  not  a  showy  virtue — fidelity,  though  not  a  shining  qual- 
ity— are  fundamental  to  manly  integrity.  (Cheers.)  During 
a  period  of  eighty  years,  the  North,  whose  wrongs  I  have  just  read 
out  to  you,  not  from  her  own  lips,  but  from  the  lips  of  her 
enemy,  has  stood  faithfully  to  her  word.  With  scrupulous  honor 
she  has  respected  legal  rights,  even  when  they  were  merely  civil 
and  not  moral  rights.  The  fidelity  of  the  North  to  the  great 
doctrine  of  State  rights,  which  was  born  of  her — her  forbearance 
under  wrong,  insult,  and  provocation — her  conscientious  and 
honorable  refusal  to  meddle  with  the  evil  which  she  hated,  and 
which  she  saw  to  be  aiming  at  the  life  of  Government,  and  at  her 
own  life — her  determination  to  hold  fast  pact  and  constitution, 


528  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

and  to  gain  her  victories  by  giving  the  people  a  new  National 
policy — will  yet  be  deemed  worthy  of  something  better  than  a 
contemptuous  sneer,  or  the  allegation  of  an  "  enormous  national 
vanity."  (Cheers.)  The  Northern  forbearance  is  one  of  those 
themes  of  which  we  may  be  justly  proud — ("  Oh,"  and  cheers) — a 
product  of  virtue,  a  fruit  of  liberty,  an  inspiration  of  that  Chris- 
tian faith,  which  is  the  mother  at  once  of  truth  and  of  liberty. 
(Cheers. )  I  am  proud  to  think  that  there  is  such  a  record  of 
national  fidelity  as  that  which  the  North  has  written  for  herself  by 
the  pen  of  one  of  her  worst  enemies.  Now  that  is  the  reason  why 
the  North  did  not  at  first  go  to  war  tc^enforce  emancipation.  She 
went  to  war  to  save  the  National  institutions — (cheers) — to  save 
the  Territories  ;  to  sustain  those  laws  which  would  first  circum- 
scribe, then  suffocate,  and  finally  destroy  slavery.  (Cheers.) 
That  is  the  reason  why  that  most  true,  honest,  just,  and  conscien- 
tious magistrate,  Mr.  Lincoln— (the  announcement  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  name  was  received  with  loud  and  continued  cheering. 
The  whole  audience  rose  and  cheered  for  some  time,  and  it  was  a 
few  minutes  before  Mr.  Beecher  could  proceed.)  From  having 
spoken  much  at  tumultuous  assemblies  I  had  at  times  a  fear  that 
when  I  came  here  this  evening  my  voice  would  fail  from  too 
much  speaking.  But  that  fear  is  now  changed  to  one  that  your 
voices  will  fail  from  too  much  cheering.  (Laughter.)  How  then 
did  the  North  pass  from  a  conflict  with  the  South  and  a  slave 
policy,  to  a  direct  attack  upon  the  institutions  of  slavery  itself  ? 
Because,  according  to  the  foreshadowing  of  that  wisest  man  of 
the  South,  Mr.  Stephens,  they  beleaguered  the  National  Govern- 
ment and  the  national  life  with  the  institution  of  slavery — obliged 
a  sworn  President,  who  was  put  under  oath  not  to  invade  that 
institution,  to  take  his  choice  between  the  safety  and  life  of  the 
Government  itself,  or  the  slavery  by  which  it  was  beleaguered. 
(Cheers.)  If  any  man  lays  an  obstruction  on  the  street,  and 
blocks  up  the  street,  it  is  not  the  fault  of  the  people  if  they  walk 
over  it.  As  the  fundamental  right  of  individual  self-defence 
cannot  be  withdrawn  without  immorality  ;  so  the  first  element  of 
national  life  is  to  defend  life.  As  no  man  attacked  on  the  highway 
violates  law,  but  obeys  the  law  of  self-defence — a  law  inside  of 
the  laws — by  knocking  down  his  assailant  ;  so,  when  a  nation  is 
assaulted  it  is  a  right  and  duty,  in  the  exercise  of  self-defence,  to 


POLITICAL.  529 

destroy  the  enemy,  by  which  otherwise  it  will  be  destroyed. 
(Hear.)  As  long  as  the  South  allowed  it  to  be  a  moral  and 
political  conflict  of  policy,  we  were  content  to  meet  the  issue  as 
one  of  policy.  But  when  they  threw  down  the  gauntlet  of  war, 
and  said  that  by  it  slavery  was  to  be  adjudicated,  we  could  do 
nothing  else  than  take  up  the  challenge.  (Loud  cheers.)  The 
police  have  no  right  to  enter  your  house  as  long  as  you  keep 
within  the  law,  but  when  you  defy  the  laws  and  endanger  the  peace 
and  safety  of  the  neighborhood  they  have  a  right  to  enter.  So 
in  constitutional  governments  ;  it  has  no  power  to  touch  slavery 
while  slavery  remains  a  State  institution.  But  when  it  lifts  itself 
up  out  of  its  State  humility  and  becomes  banded  to  attack  the 
nation,  it  becomes  a  national  enemy,  and  has  no  longer  exemp- 
tion. (Cheers.)  But  it  is  said,  "  The  President  issued  his 
proclamation  after  all  for  political  effect,  not  for  humanity." 
(Cries  of  "  Hear,  hear.")  Of  course  the  right  of  issuing  a 
proclamation  of  emancipation  was  political,  but  the  disposition  to 
do  it  was  personal.  (Loud  cheers.)  Mr.  Lincoln  is  an  officer  of 
the  State,  and  in  the  Presidential  chair  has  no  more  right  than 
your  judge  on  the  bench  to  follow  his  private  feelings.  (Applause.) 
He  is  bound  to  ask,  "  What  is  the  law  ?" — not,  "  What  is  my 
sympathy  ?"  (Hear,  hear.)  And  when  a  judge  sees  that  a  rigid 
execution  or  intei-pretation  of  the  law  goes  along  with  primitive 
justice,  with  humanity,  and  with  pity,  he  is  all  the  more  glad 
because  his  priv^ate  feelings  go  with  his  public  office.  (Cheers.) 
Perhaps  in  the  next  house  to  a  kind  and  benevolent  surgeon  is  a 
boy  who  fills  the  night  with  groans,  because  he  has  a  cancerous 
and  diseased  leg.  The  surgeon  would  fain  go  in  and  amputate 
that  limb  and  save  that  life  ;  but  he  is  not  called  in  and  therefore 
he  has  no  business  to  go  in,  though  he  ever  so  much  wish  it. 
(Hear,  hear.)  But  at  last  the  father  says  to  him,  "  In  the  name 
of  God,  come  in  and  save  my  child  ;"  and  he  goes  in  profession- 
ally and  cuts  off  his  leg  and  saves  his  life,  to  the  infinite  disgust 
of  a  neighbor  over  the  way,  that  says  "  Oh,  he  would  not  go  in 
from  neighborly  feeling  and  cut  his  leg  off."  (Loud  applause.) 
I  should  like  to  know  how  any  man  has  a  right  to  cut  your  leg  or 
mine  off  except  professionally — (laughter  and  cheers) — and  so  a 
man  must  often  wait  for  official  leave  to  perform  the  noblest 
offices  of  justice  and  humanity.      Here  then  is  the  great  stone  of 


530  HEXRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

stumbling.  At  first  the  President  could  not  touch  slavery, 
because  in  time  of  peace  it  was  a  legal  institution.  How  then  can 
he  do  it  now  ?  Because  in  time  of  war  it  has  stepped  beyond  its 
former  sphere,  and  is  no  longer  a  local  institution,  but  a  national 
and  public  enemy.  (Applause.)  Now  I  promised  to  make  that 
clear  ;  have  I  done  it  ?     ("  Hear,  hear,"  and  applause.) 

It  is  said,  "  Why  not  let  the  South  go  ?"  ("  Hear,  hear,"  and 
cheers.)  "  Since  they  won't  be  at  peace  with  you,  why  do  you 
not  let  them  separate  from  you  ?'"  Because  they  would  he  still  less 
peaceable  when  separated.  (Hear,  hear.)  Oh,  if  the  Southerners 
only  would  go  !  (Laughter.)  They  are  determined  to  stay — 
that  is  the  trouble.  (Hear,  hear.)  We  W(juld  furnish  free 
passage  to  all  of  them  if  they  would  go.  (Laughter.)  But  we 
say  the  land  is  ours.  (Cheers.)  Let  them  go,  and  leave 
to  the  nation  its  land,  and  they  will  have  our  unanimous  consent. 
(Renewed  cheers.)  But  I  wish  to  discuss  this  more  carefully.  It 
is  the  very  marrow  of  the  matter.  I  ask  you  to  stand  in  our  place 
for  a  little  time,  and  see  this  question  as  we  see  it,  afterward 
make  up  your  judgment.  (Hear,  hear.)  And  first  this  war 
began  by  the  act  of  the  South  firing  at  the  old  flag  that  had 
covered  both  sections  with  glory  and  protection.  (Applause.) 
The  attack  made  upon  us  was  under  circumstances  which  inflicted 
immediate  severe  humiliation  and  threatened  us  with  final  subjuga- 
tion. The  Southerners  held  all  the  keys  of  the  country.  They 
had  robbed  our  arsenals.  They  had  made  our  treasury  bankrupt. 
They  had  possession  of  the  most  important  offices  in  the  army  and 
navy.  They  had  the  vantage  of  having  long  anticipated  and 
prepared  for  the  conflict.  (Hear,  hear.)  We  knew  not  whom 
to  trust.  One  man  failed  -and  another  man  failed.  Men, 
pensioned  by  the  Government,  lived  on  the  salary  of  the  Govern- 
ment only  to  have  better  opportunity  to  stab  and  betray  it.  There 
was  not  merely  one  Judas,  there  were  a  thousand  in  our  country. 
("  Hear,  hear,"  and  hisses.)  And  for  the  North  to  have  lain 
down  like  a  spaniel — to  have  given  up  the  land  that  every  child 
in  America  is  taught,  as  every  child  in  Britain  is  taught,  to  regard 
as  his  sacred  right  and  his  trust — to  have  given  up  the  mouths  of 
our  own  rivers  and  our  mountain  citadel  without  a  blow,  would 
have  marked  the  North  in  all  future  history  as  craven  and  mean. 
(Loud  cheers  and  some  hisses.)     Secondly,  the  honor  and  safety 


POLITICAL.  531 

of  that  grand  experiment,  self-government  by  free  institutions, 
demanded  that  so  flagitious  a  violation  of  the  first  principles  of 
legality  should  not  carry  off  impunity  and  reward,  thereafter  ena- 
bling the  minority  in  every  party  conflict  to  turn  and  say  to  the 
majority,  "  If  you  don't  give  us  our  way  we  will  make  war." 
Oh,  Englishmen,  would  you  let  a  minority  dictate  in  such  a  way 
to  you  ?  (Loud  cries  of  "  No,  no,  never  !"  and  cheers.)  Three 
thousand  njiles  off  don't  make  any  difference,  then  ?  ("  No, 
no.")  The  principle  thus  introduced  would  literally  have  no  end 
— would  carry  the  nation  back  to  its  original  elements  of  isolated 
States.  If  every  treaty  may  be  overthrown  by  which  States  have 
been  settled  into  a  Nation,  what  form  of  political  union  may  not 
on  like  grounds  be  severed  ?  There  is  the  same  force  in  the 
doctrine  of  Secession  in  the  application  to  counties  as  in  the  appli- 
cation to  States,  and  if  it  be  right  for  a  State  or  a  county  to 
secede,  it  is  equally  right  for  a  town  or  a  city.  (Cheers.)  This 
doctrine  of  Secession  is  a  huge  revolving  millstone  that  grinds  the 
national  life  to  powder.  (Cheers.)  It  is  anarch}^  in  velvet,  and 
national  destruction  clothed  in  soft  phrases  and  periphrastic 
expressions.  (Cheers.)  But  we  have  fought  with  that  devil 
"  Slavery,"  and  understand  him  better  than  you  do.  (Loud 
cheers.)  No  people  with  patriotism  and  honor  will  give  up  terri- 
tory without  a  struggle  for  it.  (Cheers.)  Would  you  give  it 
up?  (Loud  cries  of  "No.")  It  is  said  that  the  States  are 
owners  of  their  territory  !  It  is  theirs  to  use,  not  theirs  to  run 
away  with.  We  have  equal  right  with  them  to  enter  it.  Let  me 
inform  you  when  those  States  first  sat  in  convention  to  form  a 
Union,  a  resolution  was  introduced  by  the  delegates  from  South 
Carolina  and  Virginia,  "  That  we  now  proceed  to  form  a 
National  Government."  The  delegate  from  Connecticut 
objected.  The  New  Englanders  were  State-right  men,  and  the 
South,  in  the  first  instance,  seemed  altogether  for  a  National 
Government.  Connecticut  objected,  and  a  debate  took  place 
whether  it  should  be  a  Constitution  for  a  mere  Confederacy  of 
States,  or  for  a  nation  formed  out  of  those  States.  (A  voice  : 
"  When  was  that  ?")  It  was  in  the  Convention  of  1787.  He 
wants  to  help  me.  (Laughter.)  I  like  such  interruptions.  I  am 
here  a  friend  among  friends.  (Cheers.)  Nothing  will  please 
me  better  than  any  question  asked  in  courtesy  and   in  earnest  to 


532  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

elucidate  this  subject.  I  am  not  afraid  of  being  interrupted  bj- 
questions  whicli  are  to  the  point.  (Cheers.)  At  this  convention 
the  resokition  of  the  New  England  delegates  that  they  should  form 
a  Confederacy  instead  of  a  Nation  was  voted  down,  and  never 
came  up  again.  (Cheers.)  The  first  draft  of  the  preamble 
contained  these  words  :  "  We,  the  people  of  the  United  States,  for 
the  purpose  of  forming  a  Nation  ;"  but  as  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  feeling  among  the  North  and  South  on  the  subject,  when 
the  draft  came  to  the  committee  for  revision,  and  they  had  simply 
to  put  in  the  proper  phraseology,  they  put  it  "  for  the  purpose  of 
forming  a  Union."  But  when  the  question  whether  the  States 
were  to  hold  their  autocracy  came  up  in  South  Carolina — which 
was  called  the  Carolina  heresy — it  was  put  down  and  never  lifted 
its  head  np  again  until  this  secession,  when  it  was  galvanized  to 
justify  that  which  has  no  other  pretence  to  justice.  (Cheers.)  I 
would  like  to  ask  those  English  gentlemen  who  hold  that  it  is 
right  for  a  State  to  secede  when  it  pleases,  how  they  would  like 
it  if  the  county  of  Kent  would  try  the  experiment.  (Hear,  hear.) 
The  men  who  cry  out  for  secession  of  the  Southern  States  in 
America  would  say,  "Kent  seceding?  Ah,  circumstances  alter 
cases."  (Cheers  and  laughter.)  The  Mississippi,  which  is  our 
Southern  door  and  hall  to  come  in  and  go  out,  runs  right  through 
the  territory  which  they  tried  to  rend  from  us.  The  South  mag- 
nanimously offered  to  let  us  use  it  ;  but  what  would  you  say,  if, 
on  going  home,  you  found  a  squad  of  gypsies  seated  in  your  hall, 
who  refused  to  be  ejected,  saying,  "  But  look  here,  we  will  let  you 
go  in  and  out  on  equitable  and  easy  terms."  (Cheers  and  laugh- 
ter.) But  there  was  another  question  involved — the  question  of 
national  honor.  If  you  take,  up  and  look  at  the  map  that 
delineates  the  mountainous  features  of  that  continent,  you  will 
find  the  peculiar  structure  of  the  Alleghany  ridge,  beginning  in 
New  Hampshire,  running  across  the  New  England  States,  through 
Pennsylvania  and  West  Virginia,  stopping  in  the  northern  pai't 
of  Georgia.  (Hear,  hear.)  Now,  all  the  world  over,  men  that 
live  in  mountainous  regions  have  been  men  for  liberty — (cheers) 
— and  from  the  first  hour  to  this  hour  the  majority  of  the  popu- 
lation of  Western  Virginia,  which  is  in  this  mountainous  region, 
the  majority  of  the  population  of  Eastern  Tennessee,  of  Western 
Carolina,  and  of  North  Georgia,  have  been  true  to  the  Union,  and 


POLITICAL.  533 

were  urgent  not  to  go  out.     They  called  to  the  National  Govern- 
ment, "  We  claim  that,  in  fulfilment  of  the  compact  of  the  Consti- 
tution,  you  defend   our  rights,    and   retain   us    in    the  Union." 
(Cheers.)     We  would  not  suffer  a  line  of  fire  to  be  established  one 
thousand  five  hundred  miles  along  our  Southern  border    out    of 
which,  in  a  coming  hour,  there  might  shoot  out  wars  and  disturb- 
ances, with  such  a  people  as  the  South,  that  never  kept  faith  in 
the  Union,   and  would  never  keep  faith   out  of  it.      They  have 
disturbed  the  land  as  old  Ahab  of  accursed  memory  did— (cheers 
and  hisses)— and  when  Elijah  found  this  Ahab  in  the  way,  Ahab 
said,  "  It  is  Elijah  that  has  disturbed  Israel."      (A  laugh.)     Now 
we  know  the  nature  of  this  people.      We  know  that  if  we  entered 
into    a   truce   with  them  they  would  renew  their  plots  and  vio- 
lences,  and  take  possession  of  the   continent  in  the  name  of  the 
Devil  and  slavery.      (Cheers.)     One  more  reason  why  we  will  not 
let  this  people  go  is  because  we  do  not  want  to  become  a  mili- 
tary   people.      A    great   many     say    America    is    becoming    too 
strong  ;  she  is  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the  world.      But  if  you 
permit  or  favor  this  division,  the  South  becomes  a  militaiy  nation, 
and  the  North  is  compelled  to  become  a  military  nation.     Along  a 
line  of  1500  miles  she  must  have  forts,  and  men  to  garrison  them. 
These  250,000  soldiers  will  constitute  the  national  standing  army 
of  the  North.      Now  any  nation  that  has  a  large  standing  army  is 
in  great  danger  of  losing  its  liberties.      ("  No,  no.")     Before  this 
war  the  legal  size  of  the  national  army  was  25,000.     That  was 
all  ;  the  actual  number  was  18,000,  and  those  were  all  the  soldiers 
we  wanted.     The  Tribune  and  other  papers  repeatedly  said  that 
these  men  were  useless  in  our  nation.      But  if  the  country   were 
divided,  then  we  should  have  two  great  military  nations  taking  its 
place,    and  instead   of  a  paltry   18,000  soldiers,   there  would  be 
250,000  on  one  side  and  100,000  or  200,000  on  the  other.      And 
if  America,  by  this   ill-advised   disruption,    is  forced   to   have   a 
standing  array,  like  a  boy  with  a  knife  she  will  always  want  to 
whittle  with  it.      (Laughter  and  cheers.)     It  is  the  interest  then 
of  the  world  that  the  nation  should  be  united,  and  that  it  should 
be  under  the  control  of  that  part  of  America  that  has  always  been 
for  peace— (cheers,  and  cries  of  "  No,   no") — that  it  should  be 
wrested  from  the  control  and  policy  of  that  part  of  the  nation  that 
has   always  been  for  more  territory,  for  filibustering,  for   insult- 


534  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

ing  foreign  nations.  (Cheers.)  But  that  is  not  all.  The  relig- 
ious-minded among  our  people  feel  that  in  the  territory  committed 
to  us  there  is  a  high  and  solemn  trust — a  national  trust.  We  are 
taught  that  in  some  sense  the  world  itself  is  a  Geld,  and  every 
Christian  nation  acknowledges  a  certain  responsibility  for  the 
moral  condition  of  the  globe.  But  how  much  nearer  does  it 
come  when  it  is  one's  own  country  !  And  the  Church  of  America 
is  coming  to  feel  more  and  more  that  God  gave  us  this  country, 
not  merely  for  material  aggrandizement,  but  for  a  glorious 
triumph  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  (Cheers.)  Therefore  we 
undertook  to  rid  the  territory  of  slavery.  Since  slavery  di- 
vested itself  of  its  municipal  protection,  and  has  become  a 
declared  public  enemy,  it  is  our  duty  to  strike  down  the  slavery 
which  would  blight  this  far  Western  territory.  When  I  stand  and 
look  out  upon  that  immense  territory  as  a  man,  as  a  citizen,  as  a 
Christian  minister,  I  feel  myself  asked,  "  Will  you  permit  that 
vast  country  to  be  overclouded  by  this  curse  ?  Will  you  permit  the 
cries  of  bondmen  to  issue  from  that  fair  territory,  and  do  nothing 
for  their  liberty?"  Wliat  are  we  doing?  Sending  our  ships 
round  the  globe,  carrying  missionaries  to  the  Sandwich  Islands, 
to  the  islands  of  the  Pacific,  to  Asia,  to  all  Africa.  And  yet,  when 
this  work  of  redeeming  our  continent  from  the  heathendom  of 
slavery  lies  before  us,  there  are  men  who  counsel  us  to  give  it  up  to 
the  devil,  and  not  try  to  do  anything  with  it.  Ah  !  independent 
of  pounds  and  pence,  independent  of  national  honor,  independent 
of  all  merely  material  considerations,  there  is  pressing  on  every 
conscientious  Northerner's  mind  this  highest  of  all  considerations 
— our  duty  to  God  to  save  that  continent  from  the  blast  and  blight 
of  slavery.  (Cheers.)  Yet  how  many  are  there  who  up,  down, 
and  over  all  England  are  saying,  "  Let  slavery  go — let  slavery 
go  "  ?  It  is  recorded,  I  think,  in  the  biography  of  one  of  the 
most  noble  of  your  own  countrymen.  Sir  T.  Fowell  Buxton — 
(cheers) — that  on  one  occasion  a  huge  favorite  dog  was  seized  with 
hydrophobia.  With  wonderful  courage  he  seized  the  creature  by 
the  neck  and  collar,  and  against  the  animal's  mightiest  efforts, 
dashing  hither  and  thither  against  wall  and  fence,  held  him  until 
help  could  be  got.  If  theie  had  been  Englishmen  there  of  the 
stripe  of  the  Times,  they  would  have  said  to  Fowell  Buxton, 
"  Let  him  go  ;"  but  is  there  one  here  who  does  not  feel  the  moral 


POLITICAL.  535 

nobleness  of  that  man,  who  rather  than  let  the  animal  go  down 
the  street  biting  children  and  women  and  men,  risked  his  life  and 
prevented  the  dog  from  doing  evil  ?  Shall  we  allow  that  hell- 
hound of  slavery,  mad,  mad  as  it  is,  to  go  biting  millions  in  the 
future  ?  (Cheeis.)  We  will  peril  life  and  limb  and  all  we 
have  first.  These  truths  are  not  exaggerated — they  are  diminished 
rather  than  magnified  in  my  statement  ;  and  you  cannot  tell  how 
powerfully  they  are  influencing  us  unless  you  were  standing  in  our 
midst  in  America  ;  you  cannot  understand  how  firm  that  national 
feeling  is  which  God  has  bred  in  the  North  on  this  subject.  It  is 
deeper  than  the  sea  ;  it  is  firmer  than  the  hills  ;  it  is  as  serene 
as  the  sky  over  our  heads  where  God  dwells.  (Cheers.)  But  it 
is  said,  "  What  a  ruthless  business  this  war  of  extermination  is  !" 
I  have  heard  it  stated  that  a  fellow  from  America,  purpoiting  to 
be  a  minister  of  the  gospel  of  peace,  had  come  over  to  England, 
and  that  that  fellow  had  said  he  was  in  favor  of  a  war  of  exter- 
mination. Well,  if  he  said  so  he  will  stick  to  it — (cheers) — but 
not  in  a  way  in  which  enemies  put  these  words.  Listen  to  the 
way  in  which  I  put  them,  for  if  I  am  to  bear  the  responsibility, 
it  is  only  fair  that  I  should  state  them  in  my  own  way.  We 
believe  that  the  war  is  a  test  of  our  institutions  ;  that  it  is  a  life- 
and-death  struggle  between  the  two  principjles  of  liberty  and 
slavery — (cheers) — that  it  is  the  cause  of  the  common  people  all 
the  world  over.  (Renewed  cheers.)  We  believe  that  every 
struggling  nationality  on  the  globe  will  be  stronger  if  we  conquer 
this  odious  oligarchy  of  slavery,  and  that  every  oppressed  people 
in  the  world  will  be  weaker  if  we  fail.  "(Cheers.)  The  sober 
American  regards  the  war  as  part  of  that  awful  yet  glorious 
struggle  which  has  been  going  on  for  hundreds  of  years  in  every 
nation  between  right  and  wrong,  between  virtue  and  vice, 
between  liberty  and  despotism,  between  freedom  and  bondage. 
It  carries  with  it  the  w^hole  future  of  our  vast  continent — its  laws, 
its  policy,  its  fate.  And  standing  in  view  of  these  tremendous 
realities  we  have  consecrated  all  that  we  have — our  children,  our 
wealth,  our  national  strength — and  we  lay  them  all  on  the  altar 
and  say,  "It  is  better  that  they  should  all  perish  than  that  the 
North  should  falter  and  betray  this  trust  of  God,  this  hope  of  the 
oppressed,  this  Western  civilization. "  (Cheers.)  If  we  say  this 
of  ourselves,  shall  we  say  less  of  the  slaveholders  ?     If  we  are 


536  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

willing  to  do  these  things,  shall  we  say,  "  Stop  the  war  for  their 
sakes"  ?  If  wo  say  this  of  ourselves,  shall  we  have  more  pity  for 
the  rebellious,  for  slavery  seeking  to  blacken  a  continent  with  its 
awful  evil,  desecrating  the  social  phrase,  "  National  Indepen- 
dence" by  seeking  only  an  independence  that  shall  enable  them  to 
treat  four  millions  as  chattels?  (Cheers.)  Shall  we  be  tenderer 
over  them  than  over  ourselves  ?  Standing  by  my  cradle,  standing 
by  my  hearth,  standing  by  the  altar  of  the  Church,  standing  by 
all  the  places  that  mark  the  name  and  memory  of  heroic  men 
that  poured  out  their  blood  and  lives  for  principle,  I  declare  that 
in  ten  or  twenty  years  of  war  we  will  sacrifice  everything  we  have 
for  principle.  (Cheers.)  If  the  love  of  popular  liberty  is  dead 
in  Great  Britain  you  will  not  understand  us  ;  but  if  the  love  of 
liberty  lives  as  it  once  lived,  and  has  worthy  successors  of  those 
renowned  men  that  were  our  ancestors  as  much  as  yours,  and  whose 
example  and  principles  we  inherit  as  so  much  seed-corn  in  a  new 
and  fertile  land — then  you  will  understand  our  firm,  invincible  de- 
termination to  fight  this  war  through  at  all  hazards  and  at  every 
cost.  (Immense  cheering,  accompanied  with  a  few  hisses.)  I 
am  obliged  for  this  diversion  ;  it  rests  me.  Against  this  state- 
ment of  facts  and  principles  no  public  man  and  no  party  could 
stand  up  for  one  moment  in  England  if  it  were  permitted  to  rest 
upon  its  own  merits.  It  is  therefore  sought  to  darken  the  light 
of  these  truths  and  to  falsify  facts.  I  will  not  mention  names, 
but  I  will  say  this,  that  there  have  been  important  organs  in  Great 
Britain  that  bave  deliberately  and  knowingly  spoken  what  is  not 
the  truth.  (Applause,  and  loud  cries  of  the  Times.  "  Three 
groans  for  the  Times  .f^)  It  is  declared  that  the  North  has  no 
sincerity.  It  declares  that  the  North  treats  the  blacks  worse  than 
the  South  does.  (Hear,  hear.)  A  monstrous  lie  from  beginning 
to  end.  It  is  declared  that  emancipation  is  a  mere  political  trick 
— not  a  moral  sentiment.  It  is  declared  that  this  is  the  cruel, 
unphilanthrnpic  squabble  of  men  gone  mad  with  national  vanity. 
(Cheers  and  hisses.)  Oh,  what  a  pity  that  a  man  should  "  fall 
nine  times  the  space  that  measures  day  and  night"  to  make  an 
apostasy  which  dishonors  his  closing  days,  and  to  wnpe  out  the 
testimony  for  liberty  that  he  gave  in  his  youth  !  But  oven  if  all 
this  monstrous  lie  about  the  North — this  noedlcss  slander — were 
true,  still  it  would  not  alter  the  fact  that  Northern  success  will 


POLITICAL.  637 

carry  liberty — Soutliern  success,  slavery.  (Cheers.)  Fdr  when 
society  dashes  against  society,  the  results  are  not  what  the  individ- 
ual motives  of  the  members  of  society  would  make  them — the 
results  are  what  the  institutions  of  society  make  them.  When 
your  army  stood  at  Waterloo,  they  did  not  know  what  were  the 
vast  moral  consequences  that  depended  on  that  battle.  It  was 
not  what  the  individual  soldier  meant  nor  thought,  but  what  the 
British  empire — the  national  life  behind,  and  the  genius  of  that 
renowned  kingdom  which  sent  that  army  to  victory — meant  and 
thought,  (near,  hear.)  And  even  if  the  President  were  false — 
if  every  Northern  man  were  a  juggling  hypocrite — that  does  not 
change  the  Constitution  ;  and  it  does  not  change  the  fact  that  if 
the  North  prevails,  she  carries  Northern  ideas  and  Northern  insti- 
tutions with  her.  (Cheers.)  But  I  hear  a  loud  protest  against 
war.  (Hear,  hear.)  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  Mr.  Chairman — 
there  is  a  small  band  in  our  country  and  in  yours — I  wish  their 
number  were  quadrupled — who  have  borne  a  solemn  and  painful 
testimony  against  all  wars,  under  all  circumstances  ;  and  although 
I  differ  with  them  on  the  subject  of  defensive  warfare,  yet  when 
men  that  rebuked  their  own  land,  and  all  lands,  now  rebuke  us, 
though  I  cannot  accept  their  judgment,  I  bow  with  profound 
respect  to  their  consistency.  ("Hear,  hear,"  and  cheers.)  But 
excepting  them,  I  regard  this  British  horror  of  the  American  war 
as  something  wonderful.  (Renewed  cheers  and  laughter.)  W^hy, 
it  is  a  phenomenon  in  itself  !  On  what  shores  has  not  the  prow 
of  your  ships  dashed  !  (Hear,  hear.)  What  land  is  there  with  a 
name  and  a  people,  where  your  banner  has  not  Jed  your  soldiers  ? 
(Hear,  hear.)  And  when  the  great  resurrection  reveille  shall 
sound,  it  will  muster  British  soldiers  from  every  clime  and  people 
under  the  whole  heaven.  (Cheers.)  Ah  !  but  it  is  said  this  is  a 
war  against  your  own  blood.  (Hear,  hear.)  How  long  is  it 
since  you  poured  soldiers  into  Canada,  and  let  all  your  yards  work 
night  and  day  to  avenge  the  taking  of  two  men  out  of  the  Trent? 
(Loud  applause.)  Old  England  shocked  at  a  war  of  principle  I 
She  gained  her  glories  in  such  wars.  (Cheers.)  Old  England 
ashamed  of  a  war  of  principle  !  Her  national  ensign  symboh'zes 
her  history,  the  cross  in  a  field  of  blood.  (Cheers.)  And  will 
you  tell  us,  who  inherit  your  blood,  your  ideas,  and  your  high 
spirits — (cheers) — that  we  must  not  fight  ?     (Cheers.)     The  child 


538  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

must  heed  the  parents,  until  the  parents  get  old  and  tell  the  child 
not  to  do  the  thing  that  in  early  life  they  whipped  him  for  not  doing. 
And  then  the  child  says,  "  Father  and  mother  are  getting  too 
old  ;  they  had  better  be  taken  away  from  their  present  home  and 
come  to  live  with  us."  (Cheers  and  hisses.)  Perhaps  you  think 
that  the  old  island  will  do  a  little  longer.  (Hisses.)  Perhaps 
you  think  there  is  coal  enough.  Perhaps  you  think  the  stock  is 
not  quite  run  out  yet  ;  but  whenever  England  comes  to  that  state 
that  she  does  not  go  to  war  for  principle,  she  had  better  emigrate, 
and  we  will  give  her  room.  (Laughter.)  I  have  been  very  much 
perplexed  what  to  think  about  the  attitude  of  Great  Britain  in 
respect  to  the  South.  I  must,  I  suppose,  look  to  the  opinion  of 
the  majority  of  the  English  people.  I  don't  believe  in  the  Times. 
(Groans  for  the  Times  ;  groans  for  the  Telegraph.)  You  cut  my 
poor  sentence  in  two,  and  all  the  blood  runs  out  of  it.  (Laugh- 
ter.) I  was  just  going  to  say  that,  like  most  of  you,  I  don't 
believe  in  the  Times,  but  I  always  read  it.  (Laughter.)  Every 
Englishman  tells  me  that  the  Times  is  no  exponent  of  English 
opinion,  and  yet  I  have  taken  notice  that  when  they  talk  of  men, 
somehow  or  other  their  last  argument  is  the  last  thing  that  was  in 
the  Times.  (Laughter.)  I  think  it  was  the  Times  or  Post  that 
said  that  America  was  sore,  because  she  had  not  the  moral 
sympathy  of  Great  Britain,  and  that  the  moral  sympathy  of  Great 
Britain  had  gone  for  the  South.  ("  No,  no.")  Well,  let  me 
tell  you,  that  those  who  are  represented  in  the  newspapers  as 
favorable  to  the  South  are  like  men  who  have  arrows  and  bows 
strong  enough  to  send  the  shafts  3000  miles  ;  and  those  who  feel 
sympathy  for  the  North  are  like  men  who  have  shafts,  but  have 
no  bows  that  could  shoot  them  far  enough.  (Hear.)  The 
English  sentiment  that  has  made  itself  felt  on  our  shores  is  the 
part  that  slandered  the  North  and  took  part  with  the  South  ;  and 
if  you  think  we  are  sensitive,  you  must  take  into  account  that  the 
part  of  English  sentiment  carried  over  is  the  part  that  gives  its 
aid  to  slavery  and  against  liberty.  (Hear,  hear.)  I  shall  have  a 
different  story  to  tell  when  I  get  back.  (The  assembly  rose,  and 
for  a  few  moments  hats  and  handkerchiefs  were  waved  enthusias- 
tically amid  loud  cheering.  A  voice  :  "  What  about  the 
Russians  ?"  Hear,  hear.)  A  gentleman  asks  me  to  say  a  word 
about   the    Russians    in   New  York  harbor.     As  this   is  a  little 


POLITICAL.  539 

private,  confidential  meeting — (laughter) — I  will  tell  you  tlie  fact 
abuut  tbem.  (Laughter.)  The  fact  is  this — it  is  a  little  piece  of 
coquetry.  (Laughter.)  Don't  you  know  that  when  a  woman 
thinks  her  suitor  is  not  quite  attentive  enough,  she  takes  another 
beau,  and  flirts  with  him  in  the  face  of  the  old  one  ?  (Laugh- 
ter.) New  York  is  flirting  with  Russia,  but  she  has  got  her  eye 
on  England.  (Cheers.)  AVell,  I  hear  men  say  this  is  a  piece 
of  national  folly  that  is  not  becoming  on  the  part  of  people 
reputed  wise,  and  in  such  solemn  and  important  circumstances. 
It  is  said  that  when  Russia  is  now  engaged  in  suppressing  the 
liberty  of  Poland  it  is  an  indecent  thing  for  America  to  flirt  with 
her.  I  think  so  too.  (Loud  cheers.)  Xow  you  know  what  we 
felt  when  you  were  flirting  with  Mr.  Mason  at  your  Lord  Mayor's 
banquet.  (Cheers.)  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  it  did  not  do  us  any 
hurt  to  have  you  Englishmen  tell  us  our  faults.  I  hope  it  don't 
do  you  Britishers  any  hurt  to  have  us  tell  you  some  of  yours.  (A 
laugh.)  Let  me  tell  you  my  honest  sentiments.  England, 
because  she  is  a  Christian  nation,  because  she  has  the  guardianship 
of  the  dearest  principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  ought  to  be 
friendly  with  every  nation  and  with  every  tongue.  But  when 
England  looks  out  for  an  ally  she  ought  to  seek  for  her  own 
blood,  her  own  language,  her  own  children.  (Cheers.)  And  1 
stand  here  to  declare  that  America  is  the  proper  and  natural  ally 
of  Great  Britain.  I  declare  that  all  sorts  of  alliances  with 
Continental  nations  as  against  America  are  monstrous,  and  that  all 
flirtations  of  America  with  pandered  and  whiskered  foreigners 
are  monstrous,  and  that  in  the  great  conflicts  of  the  future,  when 
civilization  is  to  be  extended,  when  commerce  is  to  be  free  round  the 
globe,  and  to  carry  with  it  religion  and  civilization,  then  two  flags 
should  be  flying  from  every  man-of-war  and  every  ship,  and  they 
should  be  the  flag  with  the  cross  of  St.  George,  and  the  flag  with 
the  stars  of  promise  and  of  hope.  (Cheers.)  Now,  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  when  anybody  tells  you  that  Mr.  Beecher  is  in  favor 
of  war,  you  may  ask,  "  In  what  way  is  he  in  favor  of  war?" 
And  if  any  man  says  he  seeks  to  sow  discord  between  father  and 
son  and  mother  and  daughter,  you  will  be  able  to  say,  "  Show  us 
how  he  is  sowing  discord  ?"  If  I  had  anything  grievous  to  say  of 
England  I  would  sooner  say  it  before  her  face  than  behind  her 
back.     I  would  denounce  Englishmen,  if  they  were  maintaincrs 


540  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

of  the  monstrous  policy  of  the  South.  However,  since  I  have 
come  over  to  tliis  country  you  have  told  me  the  truth,  and  I 
shall  be  able  to  bear  back  an  assurance  to  our  people  of  the 
enthusiasm  you  feel  for  the  cause  of  the  North.  And  then  there 
is  the  very  significant  act  of  your  Government — the  seizure  of  the 
rams  in  Liverpool.  (Loud  cheers.)  Then  there  are  the  weighty 
words  spoken  by  Lord  Russell  at  Glasgow,  and  the  words  spoken 
by  the  Attorney-General.  (Cheers.)  These  acts  and  declarations 
of  policy,  coupled  with  all  that  I  have  seen,  and  the  feeling  of 
enthusiasm  of  this  English  people,  will  warm  the  hearts  of  the 
Americans  in  the  North.  If  we  are  one  in  civilization,  one  in 
religion,  one  substantially  in  faith,  let  us  be  one  in  national 
policy,  one  in  every  enterprise  for  the  furtherance  of  the  gospel 
and  for  the  happiness  of  mankind.  (Cheers.)  I  thank  you  for 
your  long  patience  with  me.  ("Go  on  !")  Ah  !  when  I  was 
a  boy  they  used  to  tell  me  never  to  eat  enough,  but  always  to  get 
up  being  a  little  hungry.  I  would  rather  let  yon  go  away  wishing 
I  had  spoken  longer  than  go  away  saying,  "  What  a  tedious  fellow 
he  was  !"  (A  laugh.)  And  therefore  if  you  will  not  permit  me 
to  close  and  go,  I  beg  you  to  recollect  that  this  is  the  fifth  speech 
of  more  than  two  hours'  length  that  I  have  spoken,  on  some  occa- 
sions under  difficulties,  within  seven  or  eight  days,  and  I  am  so 
exhausted  that  I  ask  you  to  permit  me  to  stop.  (Great  cheer- 
ing.) 

Professor  Newman  then  rose  and  moved  the  following  resolu- 
tions :  "  Resolved,  That  this  meeting  presents  its  most  cordial 
thanks  to  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  for  the  admirable 
address  which  he  has  delivered  this  evening,  and  expresses  its 
hearty  sympathy  with  his  reprobation  of  the  slaveholders'  rebel- 
lion, his  vindication  of  the  rights  of  a  free  Government,  and  his 
aspirations  for  peace  and  friendship  between  the  English  people 
and  their  American  brethren  ;  and  as  this  meeting  recognized  in 
Mr.  Beecher  one  of  the  early  pioneers  of  negro  emancipation,  as 
well  as  one  of  the  most  eloquent  and  successful  of  the  champions 
of  that  great  cause,  it  rejoices  in  this  opportunity  of  congratulating 
him  on  the  triumphs  with  which  the  labors  of  himself  and  his 
associates  have  been  crowned  in  the  anti-slavery  policy  of  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  and  his  Cabinet."     (Cheers.) 

This    motion    was    spoken    to    by    Professor    Newman,     Rev. 


POLITICAL.  541 

Newman   Hall,  and  G.    Thompson,    Esq.,    and   was   unanimously 
carried. 

The  following  account  of  the  scene  outside  the  Hall  is  taken 
from  a  volume  containing  a  report  of  the  English  speeches,  pub- 
lished at  the  time  in  Great  Britain,  hut  now  out  of  print. 

OUTSIDK    THE    HALL. 

The  scene  outside  Exeter  Hall  last  evening  was  one  of  a  most 
extraordinary  description.  The  lecture  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Beecher 
had  been  advertised  to  commence  at  seven  o'clock,  and  it  was 
announced  that  the  hall  doors  would  be  opened  at  half-past  six. 
The  crowd,  however,  began  to  assemble  as  early  as  five  o'clock, 
and  before  six  o'clock  it  became  so  dense  and  numerous  as  com- 
pletely to  block  up,  not  only  the  footway,  but  the  carriage-way  of 
the  Strand  ;  and  the  committee  of  management  wisely  determined 
at  once  to  throw  open  the  doors.  The  rush  that  took  place  was 
of  the  most  tremendous  character,  and  the  hall,  in  every  available 
])art,  became  filled  to  overflowing  in  a  few  minutes.  No  percep- 
tible diminution,  however,  was  made  in  the  crowd,  and  at  half-past 
six  there  w^ere  literally  thousands  of  well-dressed  persons  strug- 
gling to  gain  admission,  despite  of  the  placards  exhibited  announc- 
ing the  hall  to  be  "  quite  full."  The  policemen  and  hall-keepers 
were  powerless  to  contend  against  this  immense  crowd,  who 
ultimately  fi  led  the  spacious  corridors  and  staircases  leading  to 
the  hall,  still  leaving  an  immense  crowd  both  in  the  Strand  and 
Burleigh  Street.  At  ten  minutes  before  seven  o'clock  Mr.  B. 
Scott,  the  City  Chamberlain,  and  the  chairman  of  the  meeting, 
accompanied  by  a  large  body  of  the  Committee  of  the  Emancipa- 
tion Society,  arrived,  but  were  unable  to  make  their  way  through 
the  crowd,  and  a  messenger  was  despatched  to  the  Bow  Street 
Police-station  for  an  extra  body  of  police.  About  thirty  of  the 
reserve  men  were  immediately  sent,  and  those  aided  by  the  men 
already  on  duty  at  last  succeeded  in  forcing  a  passage  for  the 
chairman  and  his  friends.  Mr.  Beecher  at  this  time  arrived,  but 
was  himself  unable  to  gain  admittance  to  the  hall  until  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  after  the  time  appointed  for  the  commencement  of  his 
address.  The  reverend  gentleman  bore  his  detention  in  the  crowd 
with  great  good-humor,  and  was  rewarded  with  a  perfect  ovation, 
33 


542  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

the  crowd  pressing  forward  in  all  directions  to  shake  hands  with 
him.  He  was  at  last  fairly  carried  into  the  hall  on  the  shoulders 
of  the  policemen,  and  the  doors  of  the  hall  were  at  once  closed, 
and  guarded  by  a  body  of  police,  who  distinctly  announced  that 
no  more  persons  would  be  admitted  whether  holding  tickets  or 
not.  This  had  the  effect  of  thinning  to  some  extent  the  crowd 
outside  ;  but  some  two  thousand  or  more  people  still  remained 
eager  to  seize  on  any  chance  of  admission  that  might  arise.  At 
a  quarter  past  seven  a  tremendous  burst  of  cheers  from  within  the 
building  announced  that  Mr.  Beecher  had  made  his  appearance  on 
the  platform.  The  cheering  was  taken  up  by  the  outsiders,  and 
re-echoed  again  and  again.  The  bulk  of  the  crowd  had  now 
congregated  in  Burleigh  Street,  which  was  completely  filled,  and 
loud  cries  were  raised  for  some  member  of  the  Emancipation 
Committee  to  address  them.  The  call  was  not,  however, 
responded  to.  Several  impromptu  speakers,  however,  mounted 
upon  the  shoulders  of  some  workingnien,  addressed  the  people  in 
favor  of  the  policy  of  the  North,  and  their  remarks  were  received 
with  loud  cheering  from  the  large  majority  of  those  present.  One 
or  two  speakers  raised  their  voices  in  sympathy  with  the  South, 
but  these  were  speedily  dislodged  from  their  positions  by  the 
crowd,  whose  Northern  sympathies  v/ere  thus  unmistakably  exhib- 
ited. Every  burst  of  cheers  that  resounded  from  within  the  hall 
was  taken  up  and  as  heartily  responded  to  by  those  outside. 
Indeed,  they  could  not  have  been  more  enthusiastic  had  they  been 
listening  to  the  eloquent  lecturer  himself.  This  scene  continued 
without  intermission  until  the  close  of  the  meeting.  When  Mr. 
Beecher  and  his  friends  issued  from  the  building  they  were  again 
received  with  loud  cheers.  A  call  for  a  cheer  for  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  responded  to  in  a  manner  that  only  an  English  crowd 
can  exhibit.  A  strong  body  of  police  were  stationed  in  the  Strand 
and  Burleigh  Street,  but  no  breach  of  the  peace  occurred  calling 
for  their  interference.  During  the  evening  a  large  number  of 
placards  denouncing  in  strong  language  the  President,  the  North, 
and  its  advocates  were  posted  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  hall. 


POLITICAL.  543 


FAREWELL  TO    HENRY    WARD    BEECHER   ON   LEAV- 
ING  ENGLAND    FOR   AMERICA. 

On  the  30tli  of  October,  1863,  tlie  Rev.  Henry  W^ard  Beeclier 
was  entertained  by  the  members  of  the  Liverpool  Emancipation 
Society,  at  a  public  breakfast  in  the  St.  James'  Hall,  Lime  Street, 
prior  to  his  return  to  America  the  following  day.  A  party  of 
about  200  ladies  and  gentlemen  sat  down  at  ten  o'clock  to  the 
repast.  The  chair  was  taken  by  Mr.  C.  Wilson,  President  of  the 
Liverpool  Emancipation  Society,  who  delivered  a  warm  and  elo- 
quent address,  at  the  conclusion  of  which  Mr.  C.  E.  Rawlins  pre- 
sented to  Mr.  Beecher  the  followinir  address  : 


TO    THE    REV.   HENRY    WARD    BEECHER,    OF    NEW    YORK,    U.S. 

After  a  brief  sojourn  in  Europe — a  short  respite  from  ceaseless 
labors  of  philanthropy — you  are  returning  to  your  country  to 
resume  those  labois  with  renewed  health  and  strength,  and  we 
trust  a  yet  firmer  faith  in  their  ultimate  success. 

Standing,  as  it  were,  on  the  very  shores  of  the  "  old  country," 
and  in  a  town  which  is  the  last — and,  perhaps,  through  its  com- 
merce, the  strongest — link  in  that  chain  which  individually  unites 
the  interests  of  England  and  the  United  States,  let  us  regard  you 
as  the  representative  of  your  countrymen,  and  take  counsel  to- 
gether ere  we  bid  you  farewell. 

There  is  no  feeling  more  common  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic 
than  pride  in  our  common  descent.  Hardly  a  century  has  elapsed 
since  you  had  no  separate  history  from  our  own.  Until  then  we 
were  fellow-countrymen — united  under  the  same  crown,  and  claim- 
ing protection  from  the  same  Constitution.  The  same  page 
recorded  for  us  both  all  the  glorious  associations  of  the  past — the 
same  battles  for  national  independence,  and  the  same  national 
struggles  for  civil  and  religious  liberty.  To  this  day  we  are  shar- 
ing the  inheritance  of  political  freedom  purchased  by  the  blood  of 
our  ancestors.  Better  than  all,  we  worship  at  the  same  altar,  and 
reverence  the  same  heroes  of  art,  literature  and  science. 

With  such  recollections  crowding  upon  us,  let  us  this  day  pledge 


544  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

each  other  not  only  by  the  memories  of  the  past,  but  our  still 
more  glorious  hopes  of  the  future,  that,  so  far  as  in  us  lies,  there 
shall  be  perpetual  peace  between  England  and  the  United  States. 

Now,  there  are  common  principles  which  mark  the  genius — 
nay,  which  must  be  essential  to  the  life  and  civilization  of  both 
nations  alike,  and  which  are  not  materially  affected  by  our  differing 
forms  of  Government.  The  latter  are,  in  fact,  but  mere  accidents 
of  our  national  existence.  On  the  one  side  we  have  an  hereditary 
iminaichy  and  an  hereditary  House  of  Lords,  around  which 
entwines  a  loyalty  to  the  crown  of  centuries.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  a  country  where  no  feudal  aristocracy  had  ever  existed  and  no 
king  ever  reigned,  you  were  obliged  to  make  both  your  President 
and  Higher  Chamber  elective.  All  otir  other  political  and  munici- 
pal institutions  are  the  same. 

What,  then,  so  closely  assimilates  the  two  nations  in  the  hopes 
and  fears,  the  present  condition  and  future  prospects  of  their 
civilization  ?  What  but  the  love  of  freedom — freedom  personal 
and  national — which  has  always  distinguished  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  above  all  others  ?  Subject  to  this  higher  law,  both  English- 
men and  Americans  hold  all  their  institutions. 

We  do  not  this  morning  trace  the  origin  and  progress  of  the 
institution  which  has  been  so  sad  an  exception  to  the  history  of 
both  nations.  England  some  years  ago  wiped  out  the  foul  blot 
from  her  own  Constitution,  and  it  is  now  her  proud  boast  that  the 
foot  of  a  slave  can  never  press  her  soil. 

The  peculiarities  which  distinguish  a  P'ederal  Union  of  States 
previously  independent  have  presented  the  same  course  with  you. 
Slavery  was  found  to  be  a  State,  not  a  national  institution.  All 
action  thereon  by  the  Federal  power  was  excluded.  But  when  the 
slaveholding  States  claimed  to  extend  this  institution  not  only  to 
the  territories  but  throughout  the  Union,  the  free  spirit  of  the 
North  was  aroused,  and  in  the  Senate,  in  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives, in  the  courts  of  justice,  in  the  still  higher  courts  of  public 
opinion,  but  everywhere  and  on  all  occasions  in  a  constitutional 
manner,  they  resisted  the  claim.  They  fought  the  battle  of  free- 
dom against  slavery  in  Missouri,  in  Texas,  and  in  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  and  at  length  they  succeeded  in  plac- 
ing in  the  Presidential  chair  a  man  who  was  equally  pledged  to  the 
constitutional  obligation  not  to  interfere  with  slavery  within  the 


POLITICAL.  545 

States  themselves,  and  to  his  personal  obligation  to  prevent  its 
further  extension. 

AVe  clearly  recognize  the  fact  that  the  Secession  of  the  Southern 
slaveholding  States  was  declared  by  themselves  to  be  because  they 
had  lost  this  power  of  extension  ;  that  it  was  to  maintain  this  un- 
constitutional Secession  that  the  national  flag  was  violated  at  Foit 
Sumter  ;  that  the  war  which  has  resulted  has  been  carried  on  by 
the  Federal  Government  for  the  suppression  of  a  rebellion  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  national  interests.  But  while  deeply  regret- 
ting the  miseries  thus  occasioned,  we  rejoice  with  you  that  treason 
placed  within  the  power  of  that  Government  what  peace  and  order 
had  denied  to  it  ;  and  it  is  with  reverential  acknowledgment  of 
that  great  Providence  which  still  educes  good  from  evil  that  we 
sympathize  with  you  in  those  acts  of  the  Legislature  upon  which 
is  founded  the  glorious  proclamation  of  freedom  to  slaves  of  rebel- 
lious States.  AVe  trust  you  may  not  fail  in  the  self-sacrifice  which 
may  yet  be  needful  ere  that  proclamation  is  realized. 

There  is  yet  one  other  point  on  which  we  could  speak  with  a   lire-u<-<^ 
candor  which  no  one  can  appreciate  better  than  yourself. 

If  the  friendly  relations  of  the  two  countries  are  to  be  main- 
tained unbroken  in  the  future,  it  must  be  on  the  basis  of  mutual 
interests.  A  free  interchange  of  commodities  between  them  will 
soon  annihilate  the  prejudices  which  still  unworthily  linger  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  (Hear,  hear,  and  cheers. )  As  in  the 
past  we  have  noticed  that  the  gradual  relaxation  of  your  protective 
tariff  was  breaking  down  the  barriers  between  the  two  nations,  so 
we  attribute  no  small  portion  of  the  bitterness  of  our  Southern 
sympathizers  to  those  disturbances  in  our  commerce  which  have 
resulted  from  your  return  to  vicious  principles  of  taxation.  That 
this  is  a  violation  of  the  rights  of  the  consumer,  and  opposed  to 
the  established  laws  of  political  economy,  you  have  yourself  ac- 
knowledged. 

Freedom  of  commerce  with  other  nations  is  but  an  extension  of 
freedom  of  production  and  interchange  within  our  own.  To  pro- 
hibit it  by  high  duties  for  the  sake  of  protecting  particular  manu- 
factures by  high  prices  is  a  robbery  of  the  consumer.  England 
has  set  a  noble  example  of  universal  free-trade.  She  offers  no 
exclusive  privileges  ;  she  asks  no  previous  conditions.  You  have 
but  to  follow  in  her  footsteps.      You  have  not  shinnk  frojn  the 


546  HENEY    WARD   BEECHER. 

niigbty  task  of  organizing  the  industry  of  4,000,000  colored  la- 
borers and  5,000,000  of  whites.  With  equal  courage,  attempt  the 
far  easier  task  of  reorganizing  your  system  of  taxation  on  the  same 
basis  of  freedom.  (Hear,  hear.)  Your  immediate  and  primary 
duty  is  the  suppression  of  a  foul  rebellion  and  the  emancipation 
of  the  slave  ;  but  we  aie  convinced  that  no  single  act  could  be 
more  effective  in  securing  and  maintaining  friendly  relations  be- 
tween our  two  nations  than  a  thorough  revision  of  your  fiscal 
policy.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  our  surplus  population  are 
every  year  emigrating  to  the  United  States.  In  future  they  will 
feel  that  every  State,  from  Maine  to  Texas,  and  every  rood  of  soil 
between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Oceans,  may  be  a  home  for  the 
free.  When  the  electric  chain  shall  again,  as  once  it  did,  unite 
us,  the  first  message  that  shall  flash  with  lightning  speed  along  its 
wires  will  be  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  peace  and  freedom  to 
man  on  earth,  without  distinction  of  creed,  or  class,  or  color,  to 
the  end  of  time." 


MR.    BEECHER'S   FAREWELL  ADDRESS. 

LIVERPOOL,  OCTOBER  30,  1863. 

The  Rev.  H.  W.  Beecher,  on  rising  to  respond  to  the  addresses, 
was  received  with  enthusiastic  cheers,  which  continued  for  some 
minutes.  He  said  :  Mr.  Chairman,  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
although  this  is  a  festive  scene,  it  is  rather  with  feelings  of  sad- 
ness and  solemnity  that  I  stand  in  your  midst  ;  for  the  hours  are 
numbered  that  I  am  to  be  with  you,  and  the  ship  is  now  waiting 
that  I  trust  will  bear  me  safely  to  my  native  land.  If  already  I 
have  to  the  full  those  sentiments  of  reverence  and  even  romantic 
attachment,  to  the  memories,  to  the  names,  to  the  truths,  and  to 
the  very  legends  of  Old  England  which  have  been  so  beautifully 
alluded  to  by  the  Chairman  on  this  occasion — if  I  bad  already  that 
preparation,  how  much,  working  on  that  predisposition,  do  you 
suppose  has  been  the  kindness,  the  good  cheer,  the  helpfulness 
which  1  have  received  from  more  noble  English  hands  and  hearts 


I 


POLITICAL.  547 

than  I  can  name  or  even  now  remember.  I  have  to  thank  them 
for  almost  everything,  and  I  have  almost  nothing  to  regret  in  my 
personal  intercourse  with  the  English  people  ;  for  I  am  too  old  a 
navio-ator  to  think  it  a  misfortune  to  have  steered  my  bark  in  a 
floe  or  even  a  storm,  and  what  few  waves  have  dashed  over  the 
bows  and  wetted  the  deck  did  not  send  me  below  whining  and 
crying.  (Hear,  hear,  and  laughter.)  It  was  a  matter  of  course. 
I  accepted  it  with  good-nature  at  the  time.  1  look  back  on  it,  on 
the  whole,  with  pleasure  now  ;  for  storms,  when  they  are  past, 
give  us  on  their  back  the  rainbow,  and  now  even  in  those  discord- 
ant notes  I  find  some  music.  (Applause.)  I  had  a  thousand 
times  rather  'that  England  should  be  so  sensitive  as  to  quarrel  with 
me  than  that  she  should  have  been  so  torpid  and  dead  as  not  to 
have  responded  at  a  stroke.  (Cheers.)  I  go  back  to  my  native 
land  ;  but,  be  sure,  sir,  and  be  sure,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  that 
have  kindly  presented  to  me  this  address,  that  though  I  needed  no 
such  spur  I  shall  accept  the  incitement  of  it  to  labor  there  for  a 
better  understanding  and  an  abiding  peace  between  these  two  great 
nations.  (Hear,  and  cheers.)  I  know  not  what  is  before  me — 
what  criticijims  may  be  made  upon  my  course.  I  think  it  likely 
that  many  papers  that  never  have  been  ardent  admirers  of  mine 
will  find  great  fault  with  my  statements,  will  controvert  ray  facts, 
will  traverse  my  reasonings.  I  do  not  know  but  that  men  will  say 
that  I  have  conceded  too  much  ;  and  that,  melting  under  the  in- 
fluence of  England,  I  have  not  been  as  sturdy  here  in  my  blows  as 
I  was  in  my  own  land.  (Laughter.)  One  thing  is  very  certain, 
that,  while  before  I  came  here  I  always  attempted  to  speak  the 
words  of  truth,  even  if  they  were  not  of  soberness — (laughter) — 
so  here  I  have  endeavored  to  know  only  that  which  made  for  truth 
first — love  and  peace  next.  (Cheers.)  Of  course  I  have  not  said 
everything  that  I  knew.  So  to  do  would  have  been  to  jabber  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  and  fail  to  promote  the  sublimest  ends 
that  a  Christian  man  or  a  patriot  can  contemplate — the  welfare  of 
two  great  allied  nations.  (Cheers.)  I  should  have  been  foolish 
if  I  had  left  the  things  which  made  for  peace  and  dug  up  the 
things  that  would  have  made  ofEence.  (Renewed  cheers.)  Yet 
that  course  was  not  inconsistent  with  frankness,  with  fidelity,  and 
with  a  due  statement  of  that  blame  which  we  have  felt  attached  to 
the  course  of  England  in  this  conflict.      (Uear,  hear.)     I  shall  go 


548  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

back  to  represent  to  my  own  countrymen  on  fitting  occasions  what 
I  have  discovered  of  the  reasons  fur  the  recent  antagonism  of  Eng- 
land to  America.  And  1  shall  have  to  say  primarily  that  the 
mouth  and  the  tongue  of  England  have  been  to  a  very  great  extent 
as  were  the  mouth  and  the  tongue  of  old  of  those  poor  wretches 
that  were  possessed  of  the  devil,  not  in  their  own  control. 
(Laughter  and  applause.)  The  institutions  of  England — for  Eng- 
land is  pre-eminently  a  nation  of  institutions — the  institutions  of 
England  have  been  very  largely  controlled  by  a  limited  class  of 
men  ;  and,  as  a  general  thing,  the  organs  of  expression  have  gone 
with  the  dominant  institutions  of  the  land.  Now,  it  takes  time 
for  a  great  unorganized,  and  to  a  certain  extent  unvoting  public 
opinion,  underneath  institutions,  to  create  that  grand  swell  that 
lifts  the  whole  ark  up —(hear,  hear,  and  cheers)  ;  and  so  it  will  be 
my  province  to  interpret  to  them  that  there  may  have  been  abun- 
dant, and  various,  and  wide-spread  utterances  antagonistic  to  us, 
and  yet  that  thoj  might  not  have  been  the  voices  that  represented, 
after  all,  the  great  heart  of  England.  (Hear,  hear,  and  applause.) 
But  there  is  more  than  that.  Rising  higher  than  party  feeling, 
endeavoring  to  stand  upon  some  ground  where  men  may  be  both 
Christians  and  philosophers,  and  looking  upon  the  two  nations 
from  this  higher  point  of  view,  one  may  see  that  it  must  needs 
have  been  as  it  has  been,  for  it  so  happens  that  England  herself, 
or  Great  Britain,  I  should  say — I  mean  Great  Britain  when  I  say 
England  always  (cheers) — Great  Britain  is  herself  undergoing  a 
process  of  gradual  internal  change.  (Hear,  hear.)  All  living 
nations  are  undergoing  such  changes.  No  nation  abides  fixed  in 
policy  and  fixed  in  institutions  until  it  abides  in  death  (hear, 
hear)  ;  for  death  only  is  immovable  in  this  life,  and  life  is  a  per- 
petual process  of  supply.  Assimilation,  excretion,  change,  and 
sensitiveness  to  the  causes  of  change,  are  the  marks  of  life.  (Ap- 
plause.) And  England  is  undergoing  a  change,  and  must  do  so 
so  long  as  she  is  vital  ;  and  when  you  shall  have  put  that  round 
about  England  which  prevents  further  change,  you  will  have  put 
her  shroud  around  her.  (Hear,  hear,  and  cheering.)  Now, 
changes  cannot  be  brought  to  pass  among  a  free,  thinking  people, 
as  you  can  bring  about  changes  in  agriculture  or  in  mechanics,  or 
upon  dead  matter  by  the  operation  of  natural  laws.  Changes  that 
are  wrought  by  the  will  of  consenting  men  imply  hesitation,  doubt. 


POLITICAL.  549 

difference,  debate,  antagonisms  ;  and  change  is  the  final  stage  be- 
fore which  always  lias  been  the  great  conflict,  which  conflict  itself, 
with  all  its  mischiefs,  is  also  a  great  benefit,  since  it  is  a  quickener 
and  a  life-giver  ;  for  there  is  nothing  so  hateful  in  life  as  death  ; 
and  among  a  people  nothing  so  terrible  as  dead  men  that  walk 
about  and  do  not  know  they  are  dead.  (Laughter  and  cheers.) 
It  therefore  comes  to  pass  that  in  the  normal  process  of  a  change 
such  as  is  taking  place  in  England,  there  will  be  parties,  there  will 
be  divided  circles,  and  cliques,  and  all  those  aspects  and  phe- 
nomena which  belong  to  healthy  and  national  progress  and  change 
for  progress.  Now,  it  so  came  to  pass  that  America  too  was  un- 
dergoing a  change  more  pronounced  ;  and  since,  contrary  to  our 
hope  and  expectation,  it  was  a  change  that  went  on  under  the 
form  of  revolution,  and  war  in  its  latter  period,  it  at  first  ad- 
dressed England  only  by  her  senses  ;  for  when  the  rebellion  broke 
out  and  the  tidings  rolled  across  the  ocean,  everybody  has  said 
"  England  was  for  you"  at  first.  (Hear,  hear.)  I  believe  so  : 
because  before  men  had  time  to  weigh  in  the  balances  the  causes 
that  were  at  work  on  our  side  ;  before  the  patrician  had  had  time 
to  study,  "  What  might  be  the  influence  of  this  upon  ray  class  ?" 
— and  the  churchman,  "  What  will  be  the  influence  of  these  piin- 
ciples  on  my  position  ?" — and  the  various  parties  in  Great  Britain, 
"  What  will  be  the  influence  of  American  ideas,  if  they  are  in 
the  ascendency,  on  my  side  and  on  my  position  ?" — before  men 
had  time  to  analyze  and  to  ponder  ;  they  were  for  the  North  and 
against  the  South  ;  because,  although  your  anti-slavery  feeling  is 
hereditary  and  legendary,  there  was  enough  vitality  in  it,  however 
feeble,  to  bring  you  on  to  the  side  of  the  North  in  the  first  in- 
stance. Much  more  would  it  have  done,  had  it  been  a  really  liv- 
ing and  quickening  principle.  It  is  said  that  up  to  the  time  of 
the  trouble  of  the  Trent,  England  was  with  us,  but  from  that  time 
she  went  rapidly  over  the  other  way.  Now  that  was  merely. the 
occasion,  but  not  the  cause.  I  understand  it  to  have  been  this — 
that  there  were  a  great  many  men  and  classes  of  men  in  England 
that  feared  the  reactionary  influences  of  American  ideas  upon  the 
internal  conflicts  of  England  herself  (liear,  hear)  ;  and  a  gieat  deal 
of  the  offence  has  arisen,  not  so  much  from  any  direct  antagonism 
between  Englishmen  and  Americans,  as  from  the  feeling  of  Eng- 
lishmen that  the  way  to  defend  themselves  at  home  was  to  fight 


I 


550  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

their  battle  in  America  (hear,  hear) — and  that  tlierefore  there  has 
been  this  strange,  this  anomalous  and  ordinarily  unexplained  cause 
of  the  offence  and  of  the  ditRculties.  Let  us  look  a  little  at  it.  I 
will  not  omit  to  state,  in  passing,  that  there  has  been  a  great  deal 
of  ignorance  and  a  great  deal  of  misconception,  (Hear,  hear.) 
But  that  was  to  be  expected.  We  are  not  to  suppose — it  would 
be  supreme  egotism  for  an  American  to  suppose — that  the  great 
mass  of  the  English  people  should  study  American  institutions  and 
American  policy  and  American  history  as  they  do  their  own  ;  and 
when  to  that  natural  unknowingness  by  one  nation  of  the  affairs  of 
another  are  added  the  unscrupulousness  and  wonderfully  active 
exertions  of  Southern  emissaries  here,  who  found  men  ready  to  be 
inoculated,  and  who  compassed  sea  and  land  to  make  proselytes 
and  then  made  them  tenfold  more  the  children  of  the  devil  than 
themselves  (applause) — when  these  men  began  to  propagate  one- 
sided facts,  suppressing — and  suppression  has  been  as  vast  a  lie  in 
England  as  falsification  (hear,  hear) — perpetually  presenting  every 
rumor,  every  telegram,  and  every  despatch  from  the  wrong  point 
of  view,  and  forgetting  to  correct  it  when  the  rest  came  (hear,  hear) — 
finding,  I  say,  these  emissaries  and  these  easy  converts,  the 
South  has  propagated  an  iminense  amount  of  false  information 
throughout  England,  we  are  to  take  this  into  account.  But  next 
consider  the  antagonisms  which  there  arc  supposed  to  be  between 
the  commercial  interests  of  North  America  and  of  England.  We 
are  two  great  rivals.  Rivalry,  gentlemen,  is  simply  in  the  nature 
of  a  pair  of  scissors  or  shears  ;  you  cannot  cut  with  one  blade,  but 
if  you  are  going  to  cut  well  you  must  have  one  rubbing  against 
the  other.  (Hear,  hear,  and -laughter.)  One  book-store  cannot 
do  as  much  business  in  a  town  as  two,  because  the  rivalry  creates 
demand.  (Hear,  hear.)  Everywhere,  the  great  want  of  men  is 
people  to  buy,  and  the  end  of  all  commerce  should  be  to  raise  up 
people  enough  to  take  the  supplies  of  commerce.  (Hear,  hear.) 
Now,  where  in  any  street  you  collect  one,  five,  ten,  twenty  book- 
sellers or  dry-goods  dealers,  you  attract  customers  to  that  point, 
and  so  far  from  being  adverse  to  each  other's  welfare,  men  cluster- 
ing together  in  rivalry,  in  the  long  run  and  comprehensively  con- 
sidered they  are  beneficial  to  each  other.  There  are  many  men 
who  always  reason  from  their  lower  faculties,  and  refuse  to  see 
any  questions  except  selfishly,  enviously,  jealously. 


POLITICAL.  551 

It  is  so  on  both  sides  the  sea.  (Hear,  hoar.)  Such  men 
will  attempt  always  to  foster  rivalry  and  make  it  rancorous.  They 
need  to  be  rebuked  by  the  honorable  men  of  the  commercial  world 
on  both  sides  of  the  ocean,  and  put  in  their  right  place — under 
foot.  (Applause.)  Against  all  mean  jealousies,  I  say,  there  is  to 
be  a  commerce  yet  on  this  globe,  compared  with  which  all  we 
have  ever  had  will  be  but  as  the  size  of  the  hand  compared  with 
the  cloud  that  belts  the  hemisphere.  (Applause.)  There  is  to  be 
a  resurrection  of  nations  ;  there  is  to  be  a  civilization  that  shall 
bring  up  even  that  vast  populous  continent  of  Asia  into  new  forms 
of  life,  with  new  demands.  There  is  to  be  a  time  when  liberty 
shall  bless  the  nations  of  the  earth  and  expand  their  minds  in  their 
homes  ;  when  men  shall  want  more  and  shall  buy  more.  There 
is  to  be  a  supply  required  that  may  tax  every  loom  and  every 
spindle  and  every  ship  that  England  has  or  shall  have  when  they 
are  multiplied  fourfold.  (Applause.)  Instead  therefore  of  wast- 
ing energy,  peace,  and  manhood,  in  miserable  petty  jealousies, 
trans-Atlantic  or  cis-Atlantic,  the  business  of  England,  as  of 
America,  should  be  to  strike  those  key-notes  of  liberty,  to  sound 
those  deep  chords  of  human  rights,  that  shall  raise  the  nations  of 
the  earth  and  make  them  better  customers  because  they  are 
broader  men.  (Great  cheering.)  It  has  also  been  supposed  that 
American  ideas  reacting  will  have  a  powerful  tendency  to  dissatisfy 
men  with  their  form  of  government  in  Great  Britain.  This  is  the 
sincere  conviction  of  many.  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  England  is 
not  perfect.  England  has  not  yet  the  best  political  instruments 
any  more  than  we  have  ;  but  of  one  thing  you  may  be  certain, 
that  in  a  nation  which  is  so  conservative,  which  does  not  trust 
Itself  to  the  natural  conservatism  of  self-governing  men,  but  even 
fortifies  itself  with  conservatism  by  the  most  potent  institutions, 
and  gives  those  institutions  mainly  into  the  hands  of  a  conserva- 
tive class,  ordained  to  hold  back  the  impetuosity  of  the  people — • 
do  you  think  that  any  change  can  ever  take  place  in  England  until 
it  has  gone  through  such  a  controversy,  such  a  living  fight,  as  that 
it  shall  have  proved  itself  worthy  to  be  received  ?  And  will  any 
man  tell  me,  that  when  a  principle  or  a  truth  lias  been  proved 
worthy,  England  will  refuse  to  receive  it,  to  givti  it  lu)usc-r(:)oin, 
and  to  make  any  changes  that  may  be  required  for  it  ?  (Ilear, 
hear.)     If  voting  viva  voce  is  best,  fifty  years  hence  you  will  be 


552  HENRY    WARD   BEECIIER. 

found  voting  in  that  manner.  If  votino;  by  the  ballot  is  best,  fifty 
years  hence  you  will  have  here  what  we  have  in  America,  th;; 
silent  fall  of  those  flakes  of  paper  which  come  as  snow  comes, 
soundless,  but  which  gather,  as  snow  gathers  on  the  tops  of  t)>e 
mountains,  to  roll  with  the  thunder  of  the  avalanche,  and  erusli  all 
beneath  it.  (Loud  applause.)  But  it  is  supposed  that  it  may  ex- 
tend still  farther.  It  is  supposed  that  the  spectacle  of  a  great 
nation  that  governs  itself  so  cheaply  will  react  in  favor  of  those 
men  in  Europe  who  demand  that  monarchical  government  shall 
be  conducted  cheaply.  (Hear,  hear.)  For  men  say,  look  at  the 
civil  list — look  at  the  miUions  of  pounds  sterling  required  to  con- 
duct our  government,  and  see  30,000,000  of  men  governed  on 
that  vast  continent  at  not  one  tenth  part  of  the  expense.  (Hear, 
hear.)  Well,  I  must  say,  that  if  this  report  comes  across  the  sea. 
and  is  true,  and  these  facts  do  excite  such  thoughts,  I  do  not  sec 
how  it  can  be  helped.  (Hear,  hear,  and  laughter.)  1  do  not  sa}- 
that  our  American  example  will  react  to  the  essential  reconstruction 
of  any  principles  in  your  edifice.  I  have  not  in  my  own  mind  the 
belief  that  it  will  do  more  than  re-adapt  your  economy  to  a  greater 
facility  and  to  more  beneficence  in  its  application  ;  but  that  it  wil- 
ever  take  the  crown  from  the  king's  head,  or  change  the  organiza- 
tion of  your  aristocracy,  I  have  not  a  thought.  (Cheers.)  It  '■* 
no  matter  what  iny  own  private  opinion  on  the  subject  is.  Did  1 
live  or  had  I  been  born  and  bred  in  England,  I  have  no  question 
that  I  should  feel,  just  as  you  feel,  for  this  I  will  say,  that  in  no 
other  land  that  I  know  of  under  the  sun  are  a  monarchy  and  an 
aristocracy  holding  power  under  it,  standing  around  as  the  bulwark 
of  the  throne — in  not  another  land  are  there  so  many  popular 
benefits  accruing  under  the  government  ;  and  if  you  must  have  an 
aristocracy,  where  in  any  other  land  can  you  point  to  so  many  men 
noble  politically,  but  more  noble  by  disposition,  by  culture,  by 
manliness,  and  true  Christian  piety  ?  (Loud  and  reiterated  cheer- 
ing.) I  say  this  neither  as  the  advocate  nor  as  the  adversary  of 
this  particular  form  of  government,  but  I  say  it  simply  because 
there  is  a  latent  feeling  that  American  ideas  are  in  natural  antag- 
onism with  aristocracy.  They  are  not.  American  ideas  are 
merely  these — that  the  end  of  government  is  the  benefit  of  the 
governed.  (Hear,  hear,  and  cheers.)  If  that  idea  is  inconsistent 
with  your  form  of  government,  how  can  that  form  expect  to  stand  ? 


POLinCAL.  553 

And  if  it  only  requires  some  slight  readjiistraent  from  generation 
to  generation,  and  if  that  idea  is  consistent  with  monarchy  and 
aristocracy,  why  should  you  fear  any  change  ?  (Cheers.)  I  be- 
lieve that  monarchy  and  aristocracy,  as  they  are  practically  devel- 
oped in  England,  are  abundantly  consistent  with  the  great  doc- 
trine, that  government  is  for  the  benefit  of  the  governed.  (Hear, 
hear.)  There  has  also  been  a  feeling  that  the  free  Church  of 
America,  while  it  might  perhaps  do  in  a  rough-and-tumble  enter- 
prise in  the  wilderness,  is  not  the  proper  form  of  church  for  Great 
Britain.  Well,  you  are  the  judges,  gentlemen,  about  that,  not 
we  ;  and  if  it  is  not  the  proper  form  for  Great  Britain,  you  need 
not  fear  that  Great  Britain  will  take  it.  If  it  is,  then  it  is  only  a  ^ 
question  of  time  ;  you  will  have  to  take  it.  (Cheers.)  For  I 
hold,  sturdy  as  you  are,  strong  as  your  will  is,  persistent  as  you 
may  be  for  whatever  seems  to  you  to  be  truth,  you  will  have,  first  z' 
or  last,  to  submit  to  God's  truth.  (Applause.)  When  I  look 
into  the  interior  of  English  thoughts,  and  feelings,  and  society, 
and  see  how  in  the  first  stage  of  our  conflict  with  your  old  anti- 
slavery  sympathies  you  went  for  the  North  ;  how  there  came  a 
second  stage,  when  you  began  to  fear  lest  this  American  struggle 
should  react  upon  your  own  parties,  I  think  I  see  my  way  to  the 
third  stage,  in  which  you  will  say,  "  This  American  struggle  will 
not  affect  our  interior  interests  and  economy  more  than  we  choose 
to  allow  ;  and  our  duty  is  to  follow  our  own  real  original  opinions 
and  manly  sentiments.  (Cheers.)  1  know  of  but  one  or  two 
things  that  are  necessary  to  expedite  this  final  judgment  of  Eng- 
land, and  that  is,  one  or  two  conclusive  Federal  victories.  (Ap- 
plause.) If  I  am  not  greatly  mistaken,  the  convictions  and  opin- 
ions of  England  are  like  iron  wedges  ;  but  success  is  the  sledge- 
hammer which  drives  in  the  wedge  and  splits  the  log.  (Hear, 
hear,  and  cheers.)  Nowhere  in  the  world  are  people  so  apt  to 
succeed  in  what  they  put  their  hand  to  as  in  England,  and  there- 
fore nowhere  in  the  world  more  than  in  England  is  success  hon- 
ored ;  and  the  crowning  thing  for  the  North,  in  order  to  complete 
that  returning  sympathy  and  cordial  good-will,  is  to  obtain  a  thor- 
ough victory  over  the  South.  (Cheers.)  There  is  nothing  in  the 
way  of  that  but  the  thing  itself.  (Laughter  and  cheers.)  Allow 
Mie  to  say,  therefore,  just  at  this  point  and  in  that  regard,  that, 
while  looking  at  it  commercially,  and  while  looking  at  it  senti- 


554  HENRY    WARD   BEECIIER. 

mentally,  the  prolongation  of  this  war  seems  mischievous,  it  is 
more  in  seeming  than  in  reality,  for  the  North  was  itself  being 
educated  by  this  war.  This  North  was  like  men  sent  to  sea  on  a 
ship  that  was  but  half  built  as  yet  ;  just  enough  built  to  keep  the 
water  out  of  the  hull  ;  but  they  had  both  to  sail  on  their  voyage 
and  to  build  up  their  ship  as  they  went.  We  were  precipitated  at 
a  civil  crisis  in  which  there  were  all  manner  of  complications  at  all 
stages  of  progress  in  the  right  direction  of  this  war,  and  the  proc- 
ess of  education  has  had  to  go  on  in  battle-fields,  in  the  drill 
camps,  and  at  home  among  the  people,  while  they  were  discuss- 
ing, and  taxing  their  energies  for  the  maintenance  of  the  war. 
And  there  never  was  so  good  a  schoolmaster  as  war  has  been  in 
America.  Terrible  was  the  light  of  his  eye,  fearful  the  stroke  of 
his  hand  ;  but  he  is  turning  out  as  good  a  set  of  pupils  as  ever 
came  from  any  school  in  this  world.  Now,  every  single  month 
from  this  time  forward  that  this  struggle  is  delayed,  unites  the 
North — brings  the  North  on  to  that  ground  which  so  many  have 
struggled  to  avoid  :  "  Union  and  peace  require  the  utter  de- 
struction of  slavery."  (Loud  cheering.)  There  is  an  old  proverb, 
"There's  luck  in  leisure."  Let  me  transmute  the  proverb,  and 
say,  "There  is  emancipation  in  delay."  (Loud  cheers.)  And 
every  human  heart,  yea,  every  commercial  man  that  takes  any 
comprehensive  and  long-sigUted  instead  of  a  narrow  view  of  tlie 
question,  will  say,  "  Let  the  war  thus  linger,  until  it  has  burned 
slaverj'  to  the  very  root."  (Renewed  cheers.)  While  it  is,  how- 
ever, a  great  evil  and  a  terrible  one — I  will  not  disguise  it — for 
war  is  dreadful  to  every  Christian  heart,  yet,  blessed  be  God,  we 
are  not  called  to  an  unmixed  evil.  There  are  many  collateral  ad- 
vantages. While  war  is  as  great  or  even  a  greater  evil  than  many 
of  you  have  been  taught  to  think,  it  is  wrong  to  suppose  that  it  is 
evil  only,  and  that  God  cannot,  even  by  such  servants  as  war, 
work  out  a  great  moral  result.  The  spirit  of  patriotism  diffused 
throughout  the  North  has  been  almost  like  the  resurrection  of 
manhood.  (Cheers.)  You  never  can  understand  what  emascula- 
tion has  been  caused  by  the  indirect  influence  of  slavery.  (Hear, 
hear.)  I  have  mourned  all  my  mature  life  to  see  men  growing  up 
who  were  obliged  to  suppress  all  true  conviction  and  sentiment, 
because  it  was  necessary  to  compromise  between  the  great  antag- 
onisms of  North  and  South.     There   were  the  few  pronounced 


POLITICAL.  555 

anti-slavery  men  of  the  North,  and  the  few  pronounced  slavery 
men  of  the  South,  and  the  Union  lovers  (as  they  were  called  dur- 
ing the  latter  period)  attempting  to  hold  the  two  together,  not  by 
a  mild  and  consistent  adherence  to  truth  plainly  spoken,  but  by 
suppressing  truth  and  conviction,  and  saying,  "  Everything  for 
the  Union."  Now  during  this  period- 1  took  this  ground,  that  if 
the  "  Union"  meant  nothing  but  this — a  resignation  of  the 
national  power  to  be  made  a  tool  for  the  maintenance  of  slavery — 
Union  was  a  lie  and  a  degradation.  (Great  cheering.)  All  over 
New  England,  and  all  over  the  State  of  New  York,  and  through 
Pennsylvania,  to  the  very  banks  of  the  Ohio,  I,  in  the  picsonce  of 
hisses  and  execrations,  held  this  doctrine  from  1850  to  1S60 — 
namely,  "  Union  is  good  if  it  is  for  justice  and  libert}'^  ;  but  if  it 
is  Union  for  slavery,  then  it  is  thrice  accursed."  (Loud  cheer- 
ing.) For  they  were  attempting  to  lasso  anti-slavery  men  by  this 
word  ''  Union,"  and  to  draw  them  over  to  pro-slavery  synipathies 
and  the  party  of  the  South,  by  saying,  '"  Slavery  may  be  wrong 
and  all  that,  but  we  must  not  give  up  the  Union,"  and  it  became 
necessary  for  the  friends  of  liberty  to  say,  "  Union  for  the  sake 
of  liberty,  not  Union  for  the  sake  of  slavery."  (Cheers.)  Now 
we  have  passed  out  of  that  period,  and  it  is  astonishing  to  see  how 
men  have  come  to  their  tongues  in  the  North  (hear,  hear,  and 
laughter),  and  how  men  of  the  highest  accomplishments  now  say 
they  do  not  believe  in  slavery.  If  Mr.  Everett  could  have  pro- 
nounced in  1850  the  oration  which  he  pronounced  in  I860,  then 
might  miracles  have  flourished  again.  (Hear,  hear.)  Not  until 
the  sirocco  came,  not  until  that  great  convulsion  that  threw  men 
as  with  a  backward  movement  of  the  arm  of  Omnipotence  from  the 
clutches  of  the  South  and  from  her  sorcerer's  breath — not  until 
then  was  it,  that  with  their  hundreds  and  thousands  the  men  of 
the  North  stood  on  their  feet  and  were  men  again.  (Great  cheer- 
ing.) More  than  warehouses,  more  than  ships,  more  than  all  har- 
vests and  every  material  form  of  wealth,  is  the  treasure  of  a  nation 
in  the  manhood  of  her  men.  (Great  applause.)  We  could  have 
afforded  to  have  had  our  stores  of  wheat  burned — there  is  wheat  to 
plant  again.  We  could  have  afforded  to  have  had  our  farms 
burned — our  farms  can  spring  again  from  beneath  the  ashes.  If  we 
had  sunk  our  ships — there  is  timber  to  build  new  ones.  Had  we 
burned  every  house — there  is  stone  and  brick  left  for  skill  again  to 


556  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

construct  them.  Perish  every  material  element  of  wealth,  but 
give  me  the  citizen  intact  :  give  me  the  man  that  fears  God  and 
therefore  loves  men,  and  the  destruction  of  the  mere  outside  fabric 
is  nothing — nothing  (cheers) — but  give  me  apartments  of  gold, 
and  build  me  palaces  along  the  streets  as  thick  as  the  shops  of 
London  ;  give  me  rich  harvests  and  ships  and  all  the  elements  of 
wealth,  but  corrupt  the  citizen,  and  I  am  poor.  (Immense  cheer- 
ing, during  which  the  audience  rose,  and  enthusiastically  reiterated 
the  applause.)  I  will  not  insist  upon  the  other  elements.  I  will 
not  dwell  upon  the  moral  power  stored  in  the  names  of  those 
young  heroes  that  have  fallen  in  this  struggle.  [Here  the  speaker 
manifested  considerable  emotion.]  I  cannot  think  of  it  but  my 
eyes  run  over.  They  were  dear  to  me,  many  of  them,  as  if  they 
had  carried  in  their  veins  my  own  blood.  How  many  families  do 
I  know,  in  which  once  was  the  voice  of  gladness,  in  which  now 
father  and  mother  sit  childless  !  How  many  heirs  of  wealth,  how 
many  noble  scions  of  old  families,  well  cultured,  the  heirs  to  every 
apparent  prospeiity  in  time  to  come,  flung  themselves  into  their 
country's  cause,  and  died  bravely  fighting  for  it.  (Cheers.)  And 
every  such  name  has  become  a  name  of  power,  and  whoever  hears 
it  hereafter  shall  feel  a  thrill  in  his  heait — self-devotion,  heroic 
patriotism,  love  of  liis  kind,  love  of  liberty,  love  of  God.  (Re- 
newed applause.)  I  cannot  stop  to  speak  of  these  things  ;  I  will 
turn  myself  from  the  past  of  England  and  of  America  to  the 
future.  It  is  not  a  cunningly-devised  trick  of  oiatory  that  has 
led  me  to  pray  God  and  his  people  that  the  future  of  England  and 
America  shall  be  an  undivided  future  and  a  cordially  united  one. 
(Hear,  and  cheers.)  I  know  my  friend  Punch  thinks  I  have  been 
serving  out  "soothing  syrup''  to  the  British  Lion.  (Laughter.) 
Very  properly  the  picture  represents  me  as  putting  a  spoon  into 
the  lion's  ear  instead  of  his  mouth  ;  and  I  don't  wonder  that  the 
^•reat  brute  turns  away  so  sternly  from  the  plan  of  feeding. 
(Laughter.)  If  it  be  an  offence  to  have  sought  to  enter  your  mind 
by  your  nobler  sentiments  and  nobler  faculties,  then  I  am  guilty. 
(Hear,  hear,  and  cheers.)  I  have  sought  to  appeal  to  your  reason 
and  to  your  moral  convictions.  I  have,  of  course,  sought  to  come 
in  on  that  side  in  which  you  were  most  good-natured.  I  knew  it, 
and  so  did  you,  and  I  knew  that  you  knew  it  ;  and  I  think  that 
any   man   with   common-sense   would   have   attempted  the    same 


POLITICAL.  557 

thing.  I  have  sacrificed  nothing,  however,  for  the  sake  of  your 
favor  (cheers),  and  if  you  have  permitted  me  to  have  any  influ- 
ence with  you,  it  was  because  I  stood  apparently  a  man  of  strong- 
convictions,  but  with  generous  impulses  as  well.  It  was  because 
you  believed  that  I  was  honest  in  my  belief,  and  because  I  was 
kind  in  my  feelings  toward  you.  (Applause.)  And  now  when  I 
go  back  home  I  shall  be  just  as  faithful  with  our  "  youno-  folks" 
as  I  have  been  \Vith  the  "  old  folks"  in  England  (hear,  hear,  and 
cheers),  I  shall  tell  them  the  same  things  that  I  have  said  to  their 
ancestors  on  this  side.  I  shall  plead  for  Union,  for  confidence. 
(Cheers.)  For  the  sake  of  civilization  ;  for  the  sake  of  those 
glories  of  the  Christian  Church  on  earth  which  are  dearer  to  me 
than  all  that  I  know  ;  for  the  sake  of  Him  whose  blood  I  bear 
about,  a  perpetual  cleansing,  a  perpetual  wine  of  strength  and 
stimulation  ;  for  the  sake  of  time  and  the  glories  of  eternity,  I  shall 
plead  that  mother  and  daughter — England  and  America — be  found 
one  in  heart  and  one  in  purpose,  following  the  bright  banner  of 
salvation,  as  streaming  abroad  in  the  light  of  the  morning,  it  goes 
round  and  round  the  earth,  carrying  the  prophecy  and  the  fulfil- 
ment together,  that,  "  The  earth  shall  be  the  Lord's,  and  that  his 
glory  shall  fill  it  as  the  waters  fill  the  sea."  (Loud  and  prolonged 
cheering.)  And  now  my  hours  are  moments,  but  I  linger  because 
it  is  pleasant.  You  have  made  yourselves  so  kind  to  me  that  my 
heart  clings  to  you.  I  leave  not  strangers  any  longer — I  leave 
friends  behind  me.  (Loud  cheers.)  I  shall  probably  never  at  my 
time  of  life — I  am  now  fifty  years  of  age,  and  at  that  time  men 
seldom  make  great  changes — I  shall  probably  see  England  no 
more  ;  but  I  shall  never  cease  to  see  her.  I  shall  never  speak  any 
more  here,  but  I  shall  never  cease  to  be  heard  in  England  as  long 
as  I  live.  (Cheers.)  Three  thousand  miles  is  not  as  wide  now  as 
your  hand.  The  air  is  one  great  sounding  gallery.  What  you 
whisper  in  your  closet  is  heard  in  the  infinite  depths  of  heaven. 
God  has  given  to  the  moral  power  of  his  Church  something  like 
his  own  power.  What  you  do  in  your  pulpits  in  England,  we 
hear  in  America  ;  and  what  we  do  in  our  pulpits,  you  hear  and 
feel  here  ;  and  so  it  shall  be  more  and  more.  Across  the  sea,  that 
is,  as  it  were,  but  a  rivulet,  we  shall  stretch  out  hands  of  greeting 
to  you,  and  speak  words  of  peace  and  fraternal  love.  Let  us  not 
34 


558  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

fail  to  hear  "  Amen,"  and  the  responsive  greeting,  whenever  we 
call  to  you  in  fraternal  love  for  liberty— for  religion— for  the 
Church  of  God.  Farewell  !  (The  reverend  gentleman  resumed 
his  seat  amid  enthusiastic  applause.) 


A   Man  of  Many   Moods. 


DESCRIPTIVE. 


THE  ALPS.* 

Our  first  glimpse  of  Mont  Blanc  was  at  Gereva,  as  the  sun 
was  going  down,  on  the  30th  of  July.  It  appeared  on  the  hori- 
zon as  a  pale  and  faint  dome,  looking  like  tb;  very  dream  of  a 
cloud.  I  cannot  tell  you  why  such  a  feeble  vision  should  have 
such  a  power.  But  in  a  moment  1  ceased  talking,  and  gazed  as  if 
I  had  seen  a  spirit  rising  from  the  other  world  with  messages  of 
solemn  import.  There  was  an  inexpressible  yearning  toward  it, 
and  a  strange  tenderness  as  if  I  had  all  my  life  sought  some  secret 
that  was  now  coming  toward  me.  The  moon  soon  arose,  and  the 
vision  departed.  Too  ranch  light  extinguished  it.  There  are 
many  things,  both  of  this  world  and  of  the  other,  that  are  best 
seen  in  twilights,  but  refuse  to  appear  when  the  eye  is  full  of 
glaring  light. 

On  Friday  we  left  Geneva  early  for  Chamounix.  Our  next 
glimpse  of  Mont  Blanc  was  had  at  St.  Martin,  near  Sallanches, 
where  we  stopped  for  a  morning.  I  crossed  the  bridge,  and  laid 
down  on  the  grass  under  some  Lorabardy  poplars  that  lined  the 
road.  Over  against  me  was  the  renowned  range  of  Mont  Blanc, 
but  not  to  be  fully  seen.  Clouds  had  gathered  about  it,  soft, 
round-edged,  luminous,  ever-changing.  Within  that  glowing 
pavilion  the  Wliite  King  dwelt.  Parts  only  gleamed  forth  for  a 
moment — now  the  lower  portion,  then  a  flank,  once  or  twice  the 
summit  alone.  But  after  waiting  as  long  as  we  could,  we  had 
been  but  tantalized  with  the  reserved  and  capricious  mountain. 
All  the  afternoon  we  clomb  hills,  and  when  we  began  to  descend 
into  the  valley,  the  sun  was  filling  the  upper  portion  with  liglit, 

*  Keprinted  from  the  N.  Y.  Independent,  1863. 


563  HENRY   WARD   BEEIHER. 

while  the  plain  was  already  gathering  twilight.  Now  began  to 
appear  the  glaciers  that  came  down  in  every  valley  from  the  range. 
Only  that  most  beautiful  of  all,  Bosson,  made  any  impression  on 
my  eye.  The  valley  varies  in  width  from  half  a  mile  to  a  mile  ; 
and  for  about  twelve  miles  is  flanked  on  the  one  side  by  the 
Mont  Blanc  range,  and  on  the  other  by  a  parallel  but  subordinate 
range.  You  must  not  imagine  the  rounded  forms  of  mountains 
such  as  prevail  in  America.  The  line  of  the  summit  is  splintered, 
jagged,  toothed,  even  more  than  the  seemingly  most  exaggerated 
cuts  and  pictures  have  represented  it,  and  long  declining  ridges 
come  down  toward  the  valley,  like  ribs,  except  at  the  very  lower 
portions. uncovered  with  trees  or  grass.  We  turned  from  the  door 
of  the  hotel,  and  looked  up  through  the  cool  evening  air  right 
upon  the  whole  summit  of  Mont  Blanc  !  It  lay  calmly  revealed, 
without  cloud  or  vapor.  Against  the  gray-blue  of  the  sky  it 
rested,  glowing  white,  with  the  sun  which  had  left  us  below  in 
twilight,  pouring  full  upon  it  in  radiant  tranquillity  !  And  yet  we 
were  disappointed  !  There  was  no  enthusiasm,  no  yearning,  no 
sense  of  wonder,  very  little  even  of  beauty.  The  distance  seemed 
but  little  and  the  mountain  small.  AVe  were  too  near  it.  There 
was  not  only  the  want  of  perspective,  but  we  had  nothing  to 
compare  it  with  and  could  see  none  of  its  relations  to  surrounding 
mountains.  It  was  a  brilliant  snow-dome  with  its  grand  glacier, 
Bosson,  like  a  hoary  beard,  stretching  down  to  the  very  plain  ; 
but  yet  it  was  near,  not  magnitudinous.  By  no  reasoning  or 
comparison  or  effort  could  we  excite  in  ourselves  an  adequate 
sense  of  size  or  distance.  How  different  from  this  was  our  experi- 
ence of  the  Jungfrau  !  Our  Sabbath  at  Interlachen  was  one  of 
rain  and  clouds.  The  evening  before,  we  had  seen  this  most 
beautiful  of  Swiss  snow  mountains  in  part  ;  for  clouds  were  busy 
coming  and  going.  It  was  a  great  disappointment,  the  next  day, 
to  see  nothing.  The  whole  was  obliterated.  A  dull,  spiritless, 
gray  drizzle  occupied  the  day  tediously.  Our  courier  was  to 
waken  us  early  should  there  be  prospect  of  clearing.  At  four  he 
rapped  on  the  door.  Out  of  the  window  we  saw  clouds,  but 
broken,  rapidly  travelling,  and  in  new  directions.  The  wind  had 
changed.  We  soon  were  on  our  way  to  Lauterbrunnen.  The 
Staubbach  Fall  did  not  disappoint  us,  nor  interest  us.  It  is  a  mere 
track  of  mist  marking  the  face  of  the  cliff.     In  some  moods  and 


DESCRIPTIVE.  5G3 

in  certain  lights  it  would  be  beautiful.  But  it  is  tbin  and  feeble. 
We  crossed  the  Wangern  Alp,  and  at  noon  found  ourselves  in 
front  of  Jungfrau.  Clouds  still  clung  to  one  and  another  part  of 
it,  radiant,  fleecy,  ever-changing  clouds,  that  seemed  moved  by 
the  rapid  flying  of  spirits  within.  Here  we  first  heard  the  distant 
roar  of  avalanches.  It  may  be  likened  to  distant  thunder.  But 
we  have  heard  a  wagon  passing  a  bridge  sound  like  both  of  them. 
We  detected  one  or  two  in  their  flight.  Some  one  cries,  "  There's 
one  !" — all  look  !  all  see  a  very  filmy  and  smoky  trace  upon  the 
side  of  the  mountain.  That  is  all.  To  one  in  their  track  they 
are  no  doubt  suSiciently  terrible.  But  at  this  distance  they  are 
sublime  only  by  what  the  imagination  lends  them.  My  imagina- 
tion bad  always  pictured  so  grand  a  spectacle  that  it  refused  to 
work  in  the  presence  of  these  little  whiffets  of  snow-dust.  But 
midsummer  avalanches  are  neither  the  large  nor  the  dangerous 
ones.  They  are  only  masses  of  ice  and  snow  breaking  off,  as 
glaciers  or  snow  deposits,  moving  to  the  edge  of  precipices,  are 
melted  in  the  midday  heat,  and  break  off  in  masses  of  moderate 
size.  The  winter  and  spring  avalanches — when  the  overburdened 
mountains  can  hold  no  more  snow,  and  the  mass  slides  down, 
collecting  as  it  goes,  plunges  into  the  valleys  vast  and  immeasur- 
able stores — are  both  sublime  and  terrible  ! 

We  went  on  over  the  little  Scheideck,  and  upon  the  summit 
gained  the  first  full  and  glorious  view  of  Jungfrau  and  its  com- 
panion Monch,  Eiger,  and  Wetterhorn.  I  shall  never  forget  that 
hour.  I  knew  then,  first  and  surely,  that  John's  vision,  the 
Great  White  Throne  was  no  magnification  of  an  earthly  king's 
chair  of  state.  A  snow-mountain,  long  hid  in  mysterious 
clouds,  at  length  disclosing  itself,  and  standing  apart  from  all 
earthly  things,  far  up  against  the  everlasting  sky,  brings  near 
the  soul  the  reality  of  God,  of  the  city  to  be  revealed  ;  and 
nothing  else  less  than  the  grandeur  of  this  ethereal  summit, 
alone,  in  transparent  ether,  blazing  with  sunlight,  amid  solemn 
silence,  could  afford  a  fit  symbol  of  that  decending  Throne  which 
filled  the  apocalyptic  vision  ! 

An  afternoon  ride  back  to  Interlachen,  in  the  golden  sunlight, 
or  through  the  cool  shadows  of  the  mountains,  along  the  side  of 
the  valley,  was  full  of  dreaming  rest  and  gladness.     As  we  drew 


564  HENRi'   WAED   BEECHER. 

near  to  Interlachen,  Jungfi-au,  with  the  setting  sun  sliining  full 
upon  it,  rose  up  from  behind  us  with  a  beauty  so  exquisite  that  I 
felt  drawn  to  it  more  as  to  a  human  being  than  to  a  snow- 
covered  rock  !  I  stood  up  in  the  carriage,  and  as  the  road  wound 
round  among  orchards  and  fields,  it  was  lost,  or  flashed  forth 
again  ;  was  hidden  only  to  gleam  forth  with  pure  white  again. 
And  so  it  played  with  me  as  a  mother  with  her  child — hiding 
her  face  and  showing  it  alternately,  to  the  babe's  infinite  delight  ! 
And  all  the  evening  I  sat  upon  the  veranda,  looking  at  that 
vision,  on  which  the  sun  went  down,  long  after  he  had  left  us  ;  on 
which  the  moon  rose,  shedding  all  over  it  a  glory  beyond  that  of 
the  day,  ineffably  transcendent  '  Between  the  two  great  hither 
mountains  this  enchantress  rose — two  green  mountains  the  only 
frame  in  wliich  such  a  glorious  picture  could  be  fitly  set. 

It  was  not  wonderful,  then,  that  Mont  Blanc  disappointed  me, 
though  it  was  thousands  of  feet  higher  than  the  Jungfrau.  We 
had  no  distance.  It  was  as  if  one  should  be  brought  close  up  to 
an  oil-painting.  The  exceeding  clearness  of  mountain  air  put  all 
our  reckoning  at  fault.  To  the  summit  it  seemed  a  mile  ;  scarcely 
more.  It  was,  as  the  crow  flies,  ten  or  twelve  !  The  eye  thought 
that  it  could  see  any  feature  of  the  summit,  so  near  and  so 
clear  was  it.  And  yet,  in  the  full  morning  light  we  knew  that 
two  parties  were  ascending  the  dome,  in  all  some  twelve,  and  yet 
not  the  slightest  trace  of  them  could  the  unaided  eye  detect.  A 
fine  opera-glass  was  tried,  but  it  could  raise  nothing.  Yet,  when 
we  took  a  powerful  telescope,  forth  came  the  party,  like  so  many 
little  black  ants  crawling  up  upon  a  white  wall.  The  glory  is 
departed  from  Mont  Blanc  as  a  mountain  of  ascent.  It  is  done 
now  by  scores  every  summer,  and  by  women  even.  It  is  no 
longer  reckoned  a  wonder.  Indeed  since  the  English  have  taken 
to  the  Alps  as  their  favorite  summer  resort,  and  the  Alpine  Club 
have  raised  the  ambition  of  bold  and  tough  young  men.  there  is 
scarcely  anything  left  in  Switzerland  that  is  not  ascended.  The 
magnificent  and  solitary  column  of  Wetterhorn  has  not  yet  felt 
the  foot  of  man,  though  he  has  reached  within  two  hundred  feet 
of  it,  and  will  inevitably  reach  the  summit  of  it  !  A  price  is  put 
upon  the  head  of  the  difiRcult  mountains.  A  party  returned  with 
ill^success  from  Aiguillevert,  I  believe  it  was,  failing  to  earn  the 


DESCRIPTIVE.  565 

five  thousand  francs  offered  to  any  one  who  would  plant  a  flag 
upon  its  summit  !  Formerly  to  ascend  Mont  Blanc  was  a  work 
of  extraordinary  renown.  Four  or  five  guides  and  as  many  porters 
were  required,  and  ample  provisions.  But  a  young  Englishman 
from  Coventry  reached  the  summit,  while  we  were  at  Chamounix, 
with  only  a  single  guide.  Just  hehind  him  all  the  way  up  was  a 
German  military  gentleman  with  ten  guides  and  porters.  But  our 
brave  young  Englishman  led  them  all  the  way.  Now,  when  he 
came  down,  no  cannon  were  fired,  and  no  parade  made.  The 
officer's  return  set  the  valley  booming  with  cannon  and  echoes.  It 
had  cost  the  Englishman  about  twenty  dollars  to  do  his  work. 
The  oflScer  spent  three  or  four  hundred.  Not  what  you  do  but 
what  you  spend  determines  the  honors  heaped  upon  you  at 
Chamounix. 

We  left  the  valley  by  the  Col  de  Balme.  Only  when  we  had 
reached  this  height  and  distance  did  we  begin  to  take  the  full 
measure  of  Mont  Blanc.  The  whole  range  is  before  you.  Now 
the  dome  seems  highest,  which  before  we  only  knew  to  be.  I 
stood  long  upon  the  summits  of  this  pass.  On  the  west  lay  the 
whole  valley  of  Chamounix  and  the  range  of  Mont  Blanc  ;  on 
the  east  the  Oberland  Alps,  like  a  line  of  giants,  plumed  with 
white. 

I  leave  the  company  at  the  chalet,  and  climb,  by  myself,  to  a 
solitary  point  of  outlook.  I  will  not  weary  you  with  descriptions, 
which  at  best  must  be  shadowy,  serving  rather  to  renew  the 
memory  of  those  who  have  seen  these  glories  than  to  excite  any 
clear  apprehension  in  those  who  have  not.  For  we  always  meas- 
ure and  imagine  unknown  things  by  a  comparison  with  things 
known.  Now,  there  is  nothing  in  all  Eastern  America  that  can 
serve  as  a  model  of  Switzerland.  Its  mountains  are  original, 
peculiar  to  itself,  and  their  likeness  is  not  reproduced  upon  our 
continent,  unless  it  be  among  the  Rocky  Mountains. 


PHILOSOPHICAL. 


EVOLUTION   AND  REVOLUTION.* 

On  Saturday  evening,  January  6th,  1883,  Mr.  Beecher  gave  in 
Cooper  Union  his  new  lecture  on  Evohition  and  Revolution. 
Half  an  hour  before  the  time  for  the  lecture  to  begin  the  hall  was 
so  full  that  the  police  closed  the  doors  and  allowed  no  more  to 
enter.     Mr.  Beecher  spoke  substantially  as  follows  : 

A  greater  change  has  taken  place  within  the  last  thirty  years, 
probably,  than  ever  took  place  in  any  former  period  of  five 
hundred' consecutive  years.  It  has  been  a  revolution  ;  and  yet 
the  revolutionary  tendencies  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  are  more 
in  seeming  than  in  fact,  and,  though  extremely  radical,  are 
radical  in  the  right  direction,  and  are  of  the  right  kind.  As  con- 
tradistinguished from  the  old  notion  of  creation  by  the  instantaneous 
obedience  of  matter  to  the  divine  command,  it  is  the  teaching  of 
the  divine  method  of  creation  as  gradual,  and  as  the  result  of 
steadily  acting  natural  laws  through  long  periods  of  time — periods 
so  long  that  not  even  the  imagination  can  stretch  to  the  border- 
land of  their  far-off  horizon.  We  have  been  brought  up  largely  to 
found  our  notions  of  creation  upon  the  poetic  expressions  of  sacred 
Scripture.  The  command,  "  God  said,  Let  there  be  light  ;  and 
there  was  light,"  is  sublime  poetr3^  We  felt  as  if  God  came  to 
the  fore-front  on  the  creating  day,  and  said,  "  Let  there  be  light," 
and  instantly  there  was  light.  This  was  the  almost  universally 
prevalent  impression.  But  it  has  now  been  sufficiently  demonstrated 
that  the  divine  method  of  creation  was  utterly  different  from  this  ; 
that  it  was  a  creation  beginning  with  the  very  smallest  elements 

*  Reprinted  from  Tfie  Christian  Union. 


PHILOSOPHICAL.  567 

—elements  inconceivably  small— and  then,  gradually,  tlirough  the 
force  of  divinely  ordained  natural  laws,  unfolding-  Jittle  by  little 
the  whole  terraqueous  globe.  This,  in  short,  is  the  theory  of 
evolution. 

While  there  are  may  divergencies  among  scientific  men  as  to 
details,  there  is  absolutely  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the 
general  application  of  this  doctrine  to  the  formation  of  the  globe, 
of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  and  of  the  animal  kingdom— until  yon 
come  up  to  man.  When  we  come  to  that  point,  were  it  not  for 
the  fear  which  good  men  entertain  of  the  effect  of  such  a  doctrine, 
I  suppose  that  it  would  be  thought  that  man  himself  has  been 
unfolded  from  the  lower  forms  into  the  human  form,  and  with 
human  intelligence. 

^  If  this  conception  of  his  origin  were  to  throw  out    the  idea  of 
divine  creation  from  it,  it  would  be  repugnant^     But  it  does  not 
involve  any  such  consequences.     There  are  three  classes  of   evo- 
lutionists when  you  look  at  them  in  reference  to  moral   questions 
—the  atheistic,  of  which  class  Mr.  Ilaeckel,  of  Germany,  is  a  very 
able  exponent  ;    the  agnostic,  to  which  class  most  of  the  eminent 
English  physicists  belong  ;  and  the  theistic,  or  Christian  evolution- 
ists.    There  is  a  difference  among  them    as  to   what  were  those 
influences  which  determined  the  variations,  and  that  discussion, 
though  tending  to  a  closure,  is  not  yet  entirely  settled.     But  when 
we  come  to  man,  the  Christian  philosopher  takes  his  stand,  and 
says  that  there   were  superadded  to   natural  forces   certain  direct 
influences  that  conduced  to  the  formation  of  the  human  mind. 

The  doctrine  of  evolution,  in  these  various  forms,  is  the  philos- 
ophy by  which  ninety-nine  per  cent  of  the  scientific  investio-ators 
of  our  time  are  working.     It  is  gradually  spreading  to  all  depart- 
ments of  effort.     Its  nomenclature  and  its  thought  are  getting  into 
the  schools  and  the  newspapers.     The  attempt  to  suppress  it  will 
fail.     The  old  folly  of  throwing  the  Bible  at  it  ought  not  in  our 
day  to  be  repeated.     They  threw  the  Bible  at  the  sun  and  the 
moon   once,  and   it   came   back   on   their    heads,   and   astronomy 
stands.     They  threw  the  Bible  at  geologv,   and  geoloiry  stands 
Let  not  the  folly  be  repeated  of  throwing  the  Bible  at  the  origin 
of  man.     I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  I  believe  man  came  from 
the  lower  animals,  but  I  am  prepared  to  say  that  if  he  did  it  will 
afford  explanation    of   many  difficulties  for  which  I  can  find  no 


5G8  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

solution  anywhere  else.  As  yet  it  is  a  hypothesis,  and  the  process 
of  procedure  with  a  hypothesis  is  to  see  if  it  will  give  a  solution 
of  all  diflBculties,  and  give  a  better  solution  of  them  than  any  other 
theory.     That  is  what  I  think  evolution  does. 

Look,  for  a  moment,  at  the  relation  which  it  sustains  to  the 
almost  universal  belief  in  the  existence  and  agency  of  a  supreme 
intelligence.  There  are  many  who  say  that  this  notion  of  evolu- 
tion is  the  product  of  atheism  and  that  it  will  lead  to  atheism.  I 
need  not  say  that  I  believe  in  the  existence  and  the  agency  of  a 
divine,  omnipotent,  omnipresent  God.  With  all  my  heart,  and  all 
my  soul,  and  all  my  mind,  and  all  my  strength,  I  believe  in  Him. 
The  scientific  man  tells  me  that  it  is  not  possible  to  prove  the 
existence  of  God.  And  I  say  the  same — but  on  the  same  ground 
that  I  should  say  to  a  man  who  should  bring  me  a  pair  of  scales 
and  ask  me  to  weigh  the  smell  of  the  rose,  "  Not  by  those  scales 
can  I  weigh  it."  There  are  other  methods  by  which  I  could 
indicate  the  existence  of  the  perfume.  The  hypothesis  of  the 
existence  of  God  leads  a  man  through  fewer  difficulties  and  solves 
more  questions  than  atheism  ever  did  or  ever  could.  But  the  highest 
proof  of  the  existence  of  God  is  moral  intuition.  A  thousand 
men  may  go  past  a  magnificent  picture  and  yet  think  there  is 
nothing  in  the  color.  An  artist  comes  past  and  it  blazes  with  sup- 
pressed color  to  him.  These  men  turn  and  say  to  him,  "  Well, 
prove  the  color.  We  are  as  good  as  you  are.  We  don't  see  it." 
"  Don't  you  wish  you  did  ?  It  is  there,  and  I  see  it  and  thrill 
with  the  feeling  of  it.  If  you  say  you  don't,  that  merely  char- 
acterizes where  you  stand."  Now,  it  is  given  to  highly  organized 
moral  natures  to  have  a  sense,  a  luminous  incoming  conviction,  of 
the  existence  of  God  ;  to  feel  it  as  plainly  as  one  feels  the  balmy 
spring  air  and  knows  that  it  is  spring,  and  not  winter,  without  his 
almanac.  A  man  may  be  an  atheist  and  be  an  evolutionist  ;  but  a 
man  may  be  an  evolutionist  and  believe  in  God  with  all  his  heart 
and  strength  and  soul.  The  agnostic  says  :  "  We  don't  know 
it."  But  they  mean  by  that  they  don't  know  it  as  they  know 
inferior  facts.  We  know  it  as  we  know  the  highest  and  noblest 
truths  of  human  life.  The  interpreting  power  of  the  highest 
development  of  human  conscience  is  far  greater  than  most  men 
have  ever  dreamed. 

Many  men  say,   "Admit  that  there  is  an  atheistic  ground  on 


PHILOSOPHICAL.  569 

which  we  can  stand  ;  what,  is  going  to  be  the  influence  of  this 
doctrine  of  evolution  upon  sacred  Scriptures  ?"  Very  beneficial. 
It  is  going  to  correct  the  absurd  uses  to  which  that  book  has  been 
for  so  many  ages  condemned.  The  Bible  itself  is  a  most  wonderful 
evolution.  What  other  book  ever  was  there  that  it  took  probably 
more  than  ten  thousand  years  to  write  ?  Mr.  Ingersoll's  whole 
pivotal  power  is  the  fact  that  among  so  large  a  number  of  men 
there  has  been  an  impression  that  everything  in  the  Bible  has 
been  derived  directly  from  God. 

What  is  the  Bible  ?  The  Bible  is  an  encyclopaedia  of  history, 
describing  what  has  been  the  course  of  progress  down  to  the 
present  time  ;  and  to  pick  out  here  and  there  an  absurdity  and 
then  say,  "  There  is  your  God  telling*  folks  to  do  so  and  so  " — 
how  foolish,  how  wicked  it  is,  except  as-  an  answer  to  men  that 
believe  in  plenary  and  verbal  inspiration.  But  there  is  no  other  such 
record  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  nor  has  any  other  nation,  except 
the  Israelite  nation  and  the  sequent  nations,  down  to  the  present 
day,  had  any  such  history  or  any  such  unfolding  of  the  process 
by  which  meii  rose  from  the  lov/est  stages  of  animalism  and  came 
to  the  effulgence  of  modern  civilization. 

And  remember  that  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  this  book 
you  cannot  find  one  single,  solitary  syllable  in  favor  of  oppression. 
All  of  the  oldest  of  the  Old  Testament  is  in  favor  of  the  working- 
man.  There  is  no  more  humanity  than  that  in  the  institutes  of 
Moses.  One  would  be  astonished  to  see  how  far  in  many  respects 
it  is  ahead  of  the  practical  morality  of  our  day.  All  the  way 
down  through  the  singers  and  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament,  the 
Bible  is  a  thunderbolt  of  denunciation  against  wrong.  There 
never  has  been  a  modern  nation  that  was  oppressed  by  creeds, 
driven  out  from  home,  wronged  by  priestcraft  and  civil  tyranny, 
that  did  not  take  refuge  in  the  Old  Testament,  because  the  whole 
spirit  of  it,  with  trumpet  tones,  was  marshalled  like  a  man-of-war 
against  all  evil  and  all  oppression  for  humanity  and  for  kindness  of 
love.  And  you  come  down  to  the  New  Testament,  and  you  find 
there  the  very  charter  of  the  rights  of  the  weak  and  of  those  liable 
to  be  despoiled,  as  nowhere  else  you  can.  For  look  at  one  single 
passage  of  the  Master  in  the  pictorial  parable  in  which  he  gathers 
all  nations  of  the  earth  to  judgment.  To  one  he  said,  "  Come," 
and  to  the  other,  "Depart,"  and  the  law  that  determined  that 


570  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

was  the  law  of  love.  lie  says  to  them,  "  I  was  sick,  I  was  op- 
pressed, I  was  hungry,  thirsty,  naked,  and  a  stranger,  and  ye  came 
and  ministered  to  me  ;"  and  they  with  wonderful  surprise  say  to 
him,  "  When  did  we  ever  see  this  man  naked,  forsaken,  or  in 
prison,  and  came  to  him  ?"  The  crowd  around  him  was  made  of 
lepers,  thieves,  lazzaroni,  harlots,  poor  miserable  creatures,  and  he 
said,  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  to  one  of  the  least  of  these, 
ye  have  done  it  to  me."  When  God  would  testify  what  his  sense 
of  the  value  of  humanity  is  he  does  not  take  the  advanced  and 
unfolded  ;  he  does  not  take  the  man  nursed  in  regal  power  ;  he 
does  not  take  the  one  foremost  in  statesmanship  ;  he  goes  down 
so  low  that  there  is  nothing  below  it,  and  takes  the  poorest  and 
meanest  ;  not  that  he  is  good,  but  bad  as  he  is  there  are  a  sacredness 
and  sanctity  in  him  that  no  man  should  dare  to  harm  or  even  to 
neglect  him.  And  if  that  is  the  value  that  is  put  upon  humanity, 
the  poor,  the  oppressed,  the  laboring,  are  the  last  men  that  should 
suffer  the  torch  to  be  thrown  into  the  temple  of  their  faith  in  regard 
to  the  sanctity  of  the  Word  of  God  ;  it  is  the  poor  man's  shield  ; 
the  poor  man's  port  of  refuge.  It  places  him  at  his  highest  value, 
by  the  judgment  of  him  who  judges  man  not  by  what  he  is  in  this 
world,  but  by  what  he  is  to  become  in  a  better  soil  and  a  finer 
clime,  when  he  will  have  another  chance  for  development. 

This  doctrine  of  the  descent  of  man  from  an  inferior  race 
throws  light  on  the  question  of  the  origin  of  sin  and  evil.  The 
lion  is  not  guilty  of  murder  when  he  kills.  He  violates  no 
restraint,  because  that  is  what  he  was  made  for.  Look  at  his 
claws.  The  wolf  was  made  to  be  a  wolf,  and  a  fox  a  fox.  You 
might  as  well  find  fault  with  granite  for  being  hard,  or  with  clay 
for  being  soft,  as  with  the  animal  creation  for  having  the  quali- 
ties of  their  nature.  To  them  was  given  no  reason,  no  moral, 
sense,  no  sense  of  beauty,  of  taste,  of  imagination — nothing  but 
to  feed  themselves,  to  propagate  their  species,  and  then  die. 
Now,  man  in  his  early  history  was  an  animal,  but  superinduced 
upon  his  animal  nature  was  the  moral  sense.  Here  is  the  line 
between  instinct  and  moral  consciousness.  The  moment  that  came 
in,  then  the  question  was.  Which  shall  rule — the  animal  sense  or 
the  higher  sense  ?  That  struggle  is  going  on  to-day  with  every  man. 
There  is  not  a  man  anywhere  who  does  not  feel  day  by  day,  in 
the  battle  of  life,  that  his  purposes  are  better  than  his  acts.     It  is 


PHILOSOPHICAL.  571 

a  conflict  between  the  upper  man  and  the  under  man  that  consti- 
tutes the  great  bulk  of  sinfuhiess  ;  and  there  you  have  a  theory 
that  throws  light  upon  a  whole  field  that  has  hitherto  been 
shrouded  not  merely  in  twilight  but  in  impenetrable  darkness. 
Of  course,  beyond  this  point  there  are  a  great  many  nice  ques- 
tions as  to  the  nature  of  sin — the  voluntary  doing  of  that  which 
a  man  knows  to  be  wrong.  These  are  questions  of  profound 
importance  but  do  not  belong  exactly  to  the  topic  of  the  lecture 
this  evening. 

Men  say,  *'  If  this  doctrine  be  true,  whf*t  light  will  it  throw  on 
the  struggling  questions  of  to-day  ;  on  the  endless  strife  and 
endeavor  to  equalize  the  conditions  of  men  ?"  Evolution  throws 
light  on  that  also.  There  are  various  schemes  for  the  reorgan- 
ization of  society — to  equalize  weakness  and  strength.  That  is 
not  nature,  and  nature  will  not  tolerate  it.  We  cannot  equalize 
weakness  and  strength  of  brain.  If  man  has  a  little  brain  he  must 
be  a  little  man,  and  if  he  has  a  large  brain  lie  must  be  a  large 
man.  Such  a  partnership  as  that  the  strong  shall  care  for  the 
weak  is  an  ideal  which  is  Christian  and  beautiful.  But  you  can't 
make  an  unthinking  man  equal  to  a  thinking  man.  You  can't 
make  a  spendthrift  equal  to  an  economical  man.  Men  are  essen- 
tially different  in  their  composition,  and  nature  sifts  and  riddles 
everything  from  the  lowest  t'  the  highest,  and  always  in  the 
direction  of  increasing  strength,  sacrificing  the  relative  imperfection, 
throwing  it  away,  and  from  generation  to  generation  advancing, 
that  by  and  by  the  average  strength  may  be  vastly  increased. 
You  can  never  baffle  that  great  law  of  nature  that  makes  two 
twice  as  much  as  one  ;  that  makes  four  twice  as  much  as  two  ; 
that  makes  a  man  all  through  five  times  as  great  as  a  man  that  is 
only  half  a  man.  With  all  your  schemes  of  benevolence — they 
are  very  benevolent,  and  ofttimes  very  noble  and  effecting  great 
good — you  cannot  touch  bottom  until  you  get  to  this  law  ;  that 
the  human  mind  determines  the  condition  of  a  man  and  his  worth 
everywhere.  He  who  is  strong  not  in  physical  strength,  but  in 
mind  and  moral  strength,  is  the  highest  ;  and  if  there  are  many 
of  them  that  class  is  the  highest,  and  you  cannot  by  any  boosting, 
or  by  any  method  of  screws,  or  adjustment,  make  the  under  equal 
to  the  upper  under  such  circumstances  ;  and  the  way  out  from 
poverty  and   insignificance  and  all   the  miserable  experiences  of 


572  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

iindercast  men  is  :  Go  np  yourself,  and  your  affairs  will  come  up 
after  you  ;  development,  education,  more  brain,  better  brain. 
The  elevation  of  mankind  in  moral  and  intellectual  culture  is  tlie 
only  way  to  cure  the  evils  of  society. 

Men  say,  "  Well,  if  the  doctrine  of  evolution  is  true,  your 
churches  are  all  cut  up  by  the  roots."  I  beg  your  pardon  ;  theol- 
ogy is  going  to  be — no  doubt  about  that.  I  shall  not  mourn  it. 
All  my  early  days  were  spent  in  the  West,  in  that  State  populous 
with  trees,  Indiana,  and  there  we  never  could  raise  a  good  crop 
fit  for  human  food  until  we  had  cut  the  trees  off.  Theology  looks 
to  me  like  a  thicket  in  the  forest,  and  as  soon  as  we  can  get  a 
good  deal  of  it  open  to  the  air  we  will  plant  better  theology  and 
have  better  crops.  But  it  does  not  touch  the  question  of 
churches.  The  churches  are  a  manifold  organization.  All  claims 
to  be  inheritors  of  the  whole  authority  of  God,  of  course,  will 
gradually  pass  away.  It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  go  back  to 
the  Apostles  to  find  out  that  I  was  ordained  to  preach  ;  I  found 
that  out  when  I  preached  and  found  folks  wanted  to  hear  me. 
The  churches  are  schools  of  moral  culture.  They  are  authorita- 
tive, apostolic  and  divine  when  they  succeed  in  producing  moral 
culture  ;  and  the  great  majority  of  the  churches  of  all  denomina- 
tions are  doing  it,  for  they  generally  leave  off  their  theology. 
They  have  to  run  into  the  block-house,  as  the  old  settlers  did, 
when  their  theology  is  attacked.  Then  they  have  to  go  in  and 
fight  for  it.  What  are  the  churches  doing  ?  They  are  going  after 
faraiHes  ;  teaching  men  how  to  bring  up  their  children  ;  organiz- 
ing for  benev^olence  ;  endeavoring  to  carry  out  the  basic  princi- 
ples of  the  doctrines  of  Christ  and  to  introduce  them  in  all 
matters,  manners  and  customs  in  the  whole  community.  That  is 
their  business.  It  is  a  grand  business.  I  would  not  have  one 
church  less  ;  I  would  multiply  the  whole.  And  as  to  the  ques- 
tion of  ordinance,  well,  let  every  one  have  si;ch  ordinance  as  he 
wants.  One  man  wants  to  sharpen  his  scythe  on  a  grindstone  ; 
another  wants  to  sharpen  his  on  a  whetstone  ;  and  they  have  a 
quarrel,  and  one  says  the  divine  way  of  sharpening  a  scythe  is 
with  a  whetstone,  and  the  other  says  no,  it  is  with  a  grindstone. 
I  say  it  doesn't  make  any  difference  if  the  scythe  is  sharp.  The 
churches  that  mollify  the  manners,  cure  the  prejudices,  extract  the 
poison  of  hatred  and  bring  men  together,  and  not  separate  them, 


PHILOSOPHICAL.  573 

produce  concord,  sympathy,  mutucal  love,  and  helpfulness,  are 
divine  institutions.  Their  works  are  divine  not  because  they 
have,  any  of  them,  any  charter,  or  any  of  them  any  link  or  title 
which  goes  up  out  of  sight  and  then,  they  say,  is  hitched  on  to 
the  train  of  one  of  the  Apostles.  Many  a  ship  throws  over  its 
deck-load  in  order  to  reach  the  harbor.  Many  churches  will  jret 
along  better  if  they  don't  undertake  to  meddle  with  creeds  and 
the  current  theologies  of  the  time. 

The  whole  theory  of  morals  is  to  be  profoundly  advantaged,  I 
think,  by  the  question  of  evolution.  Of  course  just  now  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  thinking,  and  more  or  less  comparison  of  thought,  on 
the  principle  of  an  amicable  adjustment  of  controversies  as  respects 
the  origin  of  morals  ;  but  one  thing  is  very  certain,  and  that  is 
that  the  human  race  is  unfolding  in  the  direction  of  reason  and 
moral  sense  and  affectionate  sense.  The  essential  truths  of  God 
run  down  and  throw  their  roots  into  the  great  natural  laws.  For 
every  great  precept,  every  essential,  practical  doctrine,  it  is  better 
for  the  world  that  we  should  be  able  to  say  that  it  stands,  not  on 
the  authority  of  the  priest,  nor  even  on  the  authority  of  experi- 
ence, but  that  it  stands  rooted  in  nature  itself.  If  we  cast  off 
intolerable  superstitions,  year  after  year,  influences  will  work 
with  the  very  seasons  in  favor  of  virtue  and  of  a  true  religion,  I 
thank  God,  therefore,  for  the  growing  light  and  power  of  the 
great  doctrine  of  Christian  Evolution. 


AGRICULTURAL. 


POLITICAL  ECONOMY  OF  THE  APPLE. 

[In  the  Hudson  River,  nearly  opposite  Peekskill,  and  in  the 
very  jaws  of  the  "  Race  "  (as  the  narrow  passage  through  the 
Highlands  is  called),  there  is  a  small,  rocky  island,  by  the  name 
of  loNA.  The  name  was  borrowed  from  across  the  water,  by  Dr. 
C.  W.  Grant's  father-in-law,  who  owned  this  gem — for  gem  it 
was  and  is  for  those  who  love  rocks,  glades,  fine  old  trees,  and 
absolute  seclusion. 

But  who  ever  would  have  thought  of  such  a  place  for  vine- 
yards ?  Yet,  lona  became  the  very  Jerusalem  of  grape-vines. 
Dr.  C.  W.  Grant,  formerly  of  Newburg,  purchased  the  island, 
and,  adopting  the  then  new  grape — the  Delaware — commenced 
propagating  it  for  commercial  purposes.  It  may  be  fairly  said 
that  no  man  in  America  ever  gave  to  grape  culture  a  greater 
impulse  than  Dr.  Grant.  Abundant  sales  at  length  brought  in 
abundant  revenues.  But  his  ideas  expanded  with  his  means,  and 
outran  them. 

The  island  was  to  become  another  Paradise.  Here  the 
magnolia  was  to  be  propagated  in  such  numbers  that  every  man  in 
America  could  have  it  in  his  yard,  holding  white  cups  filled  with 
perfume  to  his  windows.  The  rhododendron  was  to  be  sent  forth 
to  every  farm.  New  grapes  were  originated.  Every  year 
developed  its  own  marvel.  But  whether  it  was  pear,  Downing's 
mulberry,  grape,  or  ornamental  tree,  the  good  democratic  heart  of 
Dr.  Grant  intended  no  narrower  field  than  the  continent.  Men 
were  to  be  raised  to  a  higher  level  by  familiarity  with  better  and 
better  grapes.  The  taste  was  to  be  refined.  Every  creature 
under  the  western  heavens  was  to  sit  under  his  own  grape-vine, 
and  not  under  one  alone,  but  a  whole  vineyard  of  them. 

Health  failed.  Business  got  tangled.  The  kind  doctor  sold 
out.  He  is  gone  from  his  vineyards.  The  island  remains.  One 
of  these  days,  in  the  hands  of  some  one  who  unites  taste  and 
thrift  with  abundant  means,  it  will  become  a  marvel  of  heauty. 

But  it  will  hardly  have  a  pleasanter  day  than  when,  in  1864,  were 
gathered  there  two  or  three  score  or  more  of  ladies  and  gentlemen 


AGRICULTURAL.  575 

—not  a  few  of  them  famous  in  art,  in  literature,  in  music,  in 
pomology,  and  in  sanguine  plans  of  fruit  culture— for  a  good 
time.  Among  the  contributions  to  the  general  amusement,  I  was 
appointed  Orator  to  discourse  upon  "  The  Apple,"  and  the  address 
was  to  have  been  published,  together  with  minutes  of  the  proceed- 
ings, other  speeches,  and  various  interesting  matter.  But  years 
passed  on  without  progress  toward  publication.  What  has 
become  of  other  things  I  know  not,  but  this  apple-talk  has  been 
hshed  up  and  saved.  I  fear  it  will  never  again  be  as  fresh  or  as 
powerful  as  in  its  first  estate.  For  there  now  hangs  upon  my 
cellar  wall  a  huge  pan,  lacking  but  a  few  inches  of  three  feet  in 
diameter,  upon  which  the  ladies  who  had  heard  the  address 
established  and  perfected  an  apple-pie- sent  to  me  for  New 
Year's  Day  of  1865— of  so  rare  a  spirit  that  every  one  of  the 
hundreds  who  tasted  it  declared  it  to  be  as  good  as  it  was  large. 
Alas  !  the  pan  remains,  and  the  poetry  which  came  singing  its 
merits  ;  but  the  pie— where  is  it  ?  So,  too,  the  island  of  the 
Hudson  stands  secure  ;  but  where  are  the  joyous  people  that 
thronged  it  on  that  autumn  day  ?] 

THE    ADDRESS. 

I  am  to  discourse  of  the  apple  to  an  audience,  many  of  whom 
know  much  more  about  it  than  I  do,  and  all  of  them  full  as 
much.  It  does  not,  on  that  account,  follow  that  I  should  not 
speak.  What  a  terrible  blow  would  fall  upon  all  professions  if  a 
teacher  should  be  forbidden  to  speak  upon  things  of  which  he 
knew  nothing,  and  to  an  audience  who  knew  more  about  them 
than  he  !  One  large  part  of  the  duty  of  a  teacher  is  to  remind  his 
hearers  of  how  much  they  know,  and  tempt  them  to  a  better  use 
of  their  knowledge.  Instruction  is  one  thing,  and  important  in 
its  place  ;  t)ut  the  inspiration  of  men  to  a  good  use  of  the  thino-s 
that  they  already  know  is  far  more  needed. 

While  the  character  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  present  makes 
it  proper  for  me  to  hide,  with  due  modesty,  my  knowledge  of  the 
apple  in  the  department  of  culture,  there  is  what  may  be  called  the 
Political  Economy  of  the  Apple,  by  which  I  mean  the  apple  in 
its  relation  to  domestic  comfort  and  commerce  ;  and  on  that  sub- 
ject I  think  I  can  speak,  if  not  to  edification,  at  least  without  fear 
of  being  tracked  and  cornered. 

The  apple  is,  beyond  all  question,  i/ie  American  fruit.  It  stands 
absolutely  alone  and  unapproachable,  grapes  notwithstanding. 
Originating  in  another  hemisphere,  neither  in  its  own  country  nor 


576  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

in  any  other  to  which  it  has  been  introduced  has  it  flourished  as 
in  America.  It  is  conceded  in  Europe  that,  for  size,  soundness, 
flavor,  and  brilliancy  of  coloring,  the  American  apple  stands  first 
— a  long  way  first. 

But  it  is  American  in  another  sense.  This  is  a  land  in  which 
diffusion  is  the  great  law.  This  arises  from  our  institutions,  and 
from  the  character  which  they  have  imprinted  upon  our  people. 
In  Europe,  certain  classes,  having  by  their  intelligence  and  wealth 
and  influence  the  power  to  attract  all  things  to  themselves,  set  the 
current  from  the  centre  toward  the  surface.  In  America,  the 
simple  doctrines  that  the  common  people  are  the  true  source  of 
political  power,  that  the  government  is  directly  responsible  to 
them,  and  therefore  that  moral  culture,  intelligence,  and  training 
in  politics  are  indispensable  to  the  common  people,  on  whom 
every  state  is  to  rest  safely,  have  wrought  out  such  results  that  in 
all  departments  of  justice  and  truth,  as  much  as  in  politics,  there 
is  a  tendency  toward  the  popularizing  of  everything,  and  learning, 
or  art,  or  any  department  of  culture,  is  made  to  feel  the  need  of 
popularity  ;  a  word  which  is  very  much  despised  by  classicists, 
but  which  may  be  used  in  a  sense  so  large  as  to  make  it  respect- 
able again.  Things  that  reach  after  the  universal,  that  include  in 
them  all  men  in  their  better  and  nobler  nature,  are  in  a  proper 
sense  popular  ;  and  in  this  country,  amusement  and  refinement 
and  wealth  itself,  first  or  last,  are  obliged  to  do  homage  to  the 
common  people,  and  so  to  be  popular.  Nor  is  it  otherwise  in 
respect  to  horticulture.  Of  fruits,  I  think  this,  above  all  others, 
may  be  called  the  true  democratic  fruit.  There  is  some  democ- 
racy that  I  think  must  have  sprung  from  the  first  apple.  Of  all 
fruits,  no  other  can  pretend  to  vie  with  the  apple  as  the  fruit  of 
the  common  people.  This  arises  from  the  nature  of  the  tree  and 
from  the  nature  of  the  fruit. 

First,  as  to  the  tree.  It  is  so  easy  of  propagation,  that  any 
man  who  is  capable  of  learning  how  to  raise  a  crop  of  corn  can 
learn  how  to  plant,  graft  or  bud,  transplant,  and  prune  an  apple- 
tree — and  then  eat  the  apples.  It  is  a  thoroughly  healthy  and 
hardy  tree  :  and  that  under  more  conditions  and  under  greater 
varieties  of  stress  than  perhaps  any  other  tree.  It  is  neither 
dainty  nor  dyspeptic.  It  can  bear  high  feeding  and  put  up  with 
low  feeding.      It  is  not  subject  to  gout  and  scrofula,  as  plums  are  ; 


AGRICULTURAL.  577 

to  eruptions  and  ruptures,  as  the  cherry  is  ;  or  to  apoplexy,  as  the 
pear  is.  The  apple-tree  may  be  pampered,  and  may  be  rendered 
effeminate  in  a  degree  ;  but  this  is  by  artificial  perversion.  It  is 
naturally  tough  as  an  Indian,  patient  as  an  ox,  and  fruitful  as  the 
Jewish  Rachel.  The  apple-tree  is  among  trees  what  the  cow  is 
among  domestic  animals  in  northern  zones,  or  what  the  camel  of 
the  Bedouin  is. 

And,    like    all    thoroughly    good-natured,     obliging,     patient 
things,  it  is  homely.     For  beauty  is  generally  unfavorable  to  good 
dispositions.     (I  am  talking  to  the  ladies  now.)     There  seems  to 
be  some  dissent  ;  but  this  is  the  orthodox  view.   It  seems  as  if  the 
evil    incident   to   human    nature    had   struck  in,  with   handsome 
people,  leaving  the  surface  fair  ;  while  the  homely  are  so  because 
the  virtue  within  has  purged  and  expelled  the  evil,   and  driven  it 
to  the  skin.      Have  you  never  seen  a  maiden  that  lovers  avoided 
because   she  was   not    comely,    who    became,    nevertheless,    and 
perhaps  on  that  account,  the  good  angel  of  the  house,  the  natural 
intercessor  for  afflicted  children,  the  one  to  stay  with  the  lonely 
when   all   the  gay  had  gone  a-gadding  after  pleasure,    the   soft- 
handed  nurse,  the  story-teller  and  the   book-reader  to  the  whole 
brood  of   eager   eyes  and  hungry  ears  in  the  nursery  ;  in  short, 
the  child's  ideal  of  endless  good-nature,   self-sacrifice,  and  inter- 
cessorship,  the  Virgin  Mary  of  the  household— mother  of  God  to 
their  love,  in  that  she  brings  down  to  them  the  brightest  concep- 
tions of  what  God  may  peradventure  be  ?     And  yet,  such  are  stio-. 
matized   old  maids,  though    more    fruitful  of  everything  that    is 
good  (except  children)  than  all   others.      One  fault  only  do  we 
find  with  them — that  they  are  in  danger  of  perverting  our  taste 
and  leading  us  to  call  homeliness  beautiful.     All  this  digression, 
laiiies  and  gentlemen,  is  on  account  of  my  dear  Aunt  Esther,  who 
brought  me   up — a  woman   so   good     and   modest  that   she   will 
spend  ages  in  heaven  wondering  how   it  happened  that  she  ever 
got  there,  and  that  the  angels  will  always  be   wondering  why  she 
was  not  there  from  all  eternity. 

I  have  said,  with  some  digressions,  that  the  apple-tree  is 
homely  ;  but  it  is  also  hardy,and  not  only  in  respect  to  climate. 
It  is  almost  indifferent  to  soil  and  exposure.  We  should  as  soon 
think  of  coddling  an  oak-tree  or  a  chestnut  ;  we  should  as  soon 
think  of  shielding  from  the  winter,  white  pine  or  hemlock,  as  an 
35 


578  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

apple-trec.  If  there  is  a  lot  too  steep  for  the  plough  or  too  rocky 
for  tools,  the  farmer  dedicates  it  to  an  apple  orchard.  Nor  do 
the  trees  betray  his  trust.  Yet,  the  apple  loves  the  meadows.  It 
will  thrive  in  sandy  loams,  and  adapt  itself  to  the  toughest  clay. 
It  will  bear  as  much  dryness  as  a  mullein-stalk,  and  as  much  wet 
almost  as  a  willow.  In  short,  it  is  a  genuine  democrat.  It  can 
be  poor,  while  it  loves  to  be  rich  ;  it  can  be  plain,  although  it 
prefers  to  be  ornate  ;  it  can  be  neglected,  notwithstanding  it  wel- 
comes attention.  But,  whether  neglected,  abused,  or  abandoned, 
it  is  able  to  take  care  of  itself,  and  to  be  fruitful  of  excellences. 
That  is  what  I  call  being  democratic. 

The  apple-tree  is  the  common  people's  tree,  moreover,  because 
it  is  the  child  of  every  latitude  and  every  longitude  on  this  conti- 
nent. It  will  grow  in  Canada  and  Maine.  It  will  thrive  in 
Florida  and  Mexico.  It  does  well  on  the  Atlantic  slope  ;  and  on 
the  Pacific  the  apple  is  portentous.  Newton  sat  in  an  orchard, 
and  an  apple,  plumping  down  on  his  head,  started  a  train  of 
thought  which  opened  the  heavens  to  us.  Had  it  been  in  Cali- 
fornia the  size  of  the  apples  there  would  have  saved  him  the 
trouble  of  much  thinking  thereafter,  perhaps,  opening  the  heavens 
to  him,  and  not  to  us.  Wherever  Indian  corn  will  grow,  the 
apple  will  thrive  ;  and  wherever  timothy-grass  will  ripen  its  seed, 
the  apple  will  exist  fruitfully. 

Nor  is  the  tree  unworthy  of  special  mention  on  account  of 
health  and  longevity.  It  is  subject  to  fewer  diseases  than  almost 
any  tree  of  our  country.  Th6  worms  that  infest  it  are  more  easily 
destroyed  than  those  upon  the  currant  or  the  rose.  The  leaf  is 
subject  to  blight  in  so  small  a  degree,  that  not  one  farmer  in  a 
hundred  ever  thinks  of  it.  The  trunk  is  seldom  winter-killed.  It 
never  cracks.  It  has  no  trouble,  as  the  cherry  does, .  in  unbuck- 
ling the  old  bark  and  getting  rid  of  it.  The  borer  is  the  only 
important  enemy  ;  and  even  this  is  a  trifle,  if  you  compare  the 
labor  required  to  destroy  it  with  the  pains  which  men  willingly 
take  to  secure  a  crop  of  potatoes.  Acre  for  acre,  an  apple  orchard 
will,  on  an  average  of  years,  produce  more  than  half  as  many 
bushels  of  fruit  as  a  potato-field — will  it  not  ?  And  yet  in  plough- 
ing and  planting  and  after-ploughing  and  hoeing  and  digging,  the 
potato  requires  at  least  five  times  the  annual  labor  which  is 
needed  by  the  apple.     An  acre  of  apple-trees  can  be  kept  clean  of 


AGRICULTURAL.  579 

all  enemies  and  diseases  witli  half  the  labor  of  once  hoeing  a  crop 
of  potatoes.  And  if  you  have  borers  it  is  your  own  fault,  and 
you  ought  to  be  bored  ! 

The  health  of  the  apple-tree  is  so  great  that  farmers  never 
think  of  examining  their  orchards  for  disease,  any  more  than 
they  do  cedar  posts  or  chestnut  rails.  And  the  great  longevity  of 
the  apple-tree  attests  its  good  constitution.  Two  hundred  year? 
it  sometimes  reaches.  I  have  a  tree  on  my  own  place  in  Peekskill 
that  cannot  be  less  than  that.  Two  ladies,  one  about  eighty 
years  of  age,  called  upon  us  about  three  years  ago,  saying  that 
they  were  brought  up  on  that  farm,  and  inquiring  if  the  old 
apple-tree  yet  lived.  They  said  that  in  their  childhood  it  was 
called  the  old  apple-tree,  and  was  then  a  patriarch.  It  must  now 
be  a  Methuselah.  x\nd,  not  to  recur  to  it  again,  I  may  say  that 
it  is  probably  the  largest  recorded  apple-tree  of  the  world.  I  read 
in  no  v/ork  of  any  tree  whose  circumference  is  greater  than  twelve 
or  thirteen  feet.  This  morning  I  measured  the  Peekskill  apple- 
tree,  and  found  that  six  inches  above  the  ground  it  was  fourteen 
feet  and  six  inches,  and,  at  about  four  feet,  or  the  spring  of  the 
limbs,  fourteen  feet  and  ten  inches.  T  am  sorry  to  add  that  the 
long-suffering  old  tree  gives  unmistakable  signs  of  yielding  to  the 
infirmities  of  age.  The  fruit  is  sweet,  but  not  especially  valu- 
able, except  for  stock.  I  do  not  expect  to  live  to  see  any  of  my 
other  trees  attain  to  the  size  and  age  of  this  solitary  lingerer  of 
other  centuries  !  I  cannot  help  reverencing  a  tree  whose  leaves 
have  trembled  to  the  cannonading  of  the  guns  of  our  Revolution, 
which  yielded  fruit  to  Putnam's  soldiers  when  that  hill  was  a 
military  post,  and  under  whose  shadow  Washington  himself — 
without  any  stretch  of  probability — may  have  walked. 

I  ought  not  to  omit  the  good  properties  of  the  apple-tree  for 
fuel  and  cabinet-work.  I  have  for  five  autumns  kept  up  the 
bright  fire  required  by  the  weather  in  an  old-fashioned  Franklin 
fireplace,  using  apple-wood,  procured  from  old  trees  pruned  or  cut 
up  wholly  ;  and,  when  it  is  seasoned,  I  esteem  it  nearly  as  good 
as  hickory,  fully  as  good  as  maple,  and  far  better  than  seasoned 
beech,  I  have  also  for  my  best  bureau  one  of  apple-wood.  It 
might  be  mistaken  for  cherry.  It  is  fine-grained,  very  hard,  solid 
as  mahogany,  and  grows  richer  with  every  year  of  age. 

In  Europe,  the  streets  and  roads  are  often  shaded  by  fruit  trees, 


580  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

tlie  mulberry  and  the  cherry  being  preferred.  In  some  parts,  the 
public  are  allowed  to  help  themselves  freely.  When  the  fruit  of 
any  tree  is  to  be  reserved,  a  wisp  of  straw  is  placed  around  it, 
which  suffices.  Upright-growing  apple-trees  might  be  employed, 
with  pears  and  cherries,  in  our  streets  and  roads,  and  by  their 
very  number,  and  their  abundance  of  fruit,  might  be  taken  away 
one  motive  of  pilfering  from  juvenile  hands.  He  must  be  a  pre- 
ordained thief  who  will  go  miles  to  steal  that  which  he  can  get  in 
broad  daylight,  without  reproach,  by  his  door.  One  way  to  stop 
stealing  is  to  give  folks  enough  without  it. 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  of  the  apple  tree.  I  now  pass  to  the 
fruit — to  the  apple  itself.  The  question  whether  it  sprang  from 
the  wild  crab  T  do  not  regard  as  yet  settled.  It  is  not  known 
from  any  historical  evidence  to  have  had  that  origin.  You  cannot 
prove  that  this,  that,  or  the  other  man,  of  any  age  or  nation, 
planted  the  seed  and  brought  forward  the  fruit.  Nor  am  I  aware 
that  any  man  has  conducted  experiments  on  it  like  those  of  Van 
Mons  on  the  pear,  or  those  which  Dr.  Grant  has  made  on  the 
grape  that  is  cultivated  in  this  country,  to  show  that  it  sprang 
from  the  wild  grape  of  Europe.  Until  that  is  done,  it  will  be 
only  a  theory,  a  probable  fact,  but  not  a  fact  proved.  And,  by 
the  way,  it  might  be  worth  some  man's  while,  at  his.  leisure,  to 
take  the  seeds  of  the  American  wild  grape,  and  see  if,  by  any 
horticultural  Sunday-school,  he  can  work  thera  up  into  good 
Christian  vines. 

The  apple  comes  nearer  to  universal  uses  than  any  other  fruit 
of  the  world.  Is  there  another  that  has  such  a  range  of  season  ? 
It  begins  in  July,  and  a  good  cellar  brings  the  apple  round  into 
July  again,  yet  unshrunk,  and  in  good  flavor.  It  belts  the  year. 
"What  other  fruit,  except  in  the  tropics,  where  there  is  no  winter, 
and  where  there  are  successive  growths,  can  do  that  ? 

It  is  a  luxury,  too.  Kinds  may  be  had  so  tender,  so  delicate, 
and,  as  Dr.  Grrant — the  General  Grant  of  the  vineyards — would 
say,  so  refreshing,  that  not  the  pear,  even,  would  dare  to  vie  with 
it,  or  hope  to  surpass  it.  The  Vanderveer  of  the  Hudson  River, 
the  American  Golden  Russet,  need  not,  in  good  seasons,  well 
ripened,  fear  a  regiment  of  pears  in  pomological  convention,  even 
In  the  city  of  Boston.  It  may  not  rival  the  melting  qualities  of 
the  peach,   eating  which  one  knows  not  whether  he  is  eating  or 


AGRICULTURAL.  581 

drinking.  But  the  peacli  is  the  fruit  of  a  day — ephemeral  ;  and 
it  is  doubtful  whether  one  would  carry  through  the  year  any  such 
relish  as  is  experienced  for  a  few  weeks.  It  is  the  peculiarity  of 
the  apple  that  it  never  wearies  the  taste.  It  is  to  fruit  what 
wheatcn  bread  is  to  grains.  It  is  a  life-long  relish.  You  may  be 
satisfied  with  apples,  but  never  cloyed.  Do  you  remember  your 
boyhood  feats  ?  I  was  brought  up  in  a  great  old-fashioned  house, 
with  a  cellar  under  every  inch  of  it  through  which  an  ox-cart 
might  have  been  wheeled  after  all  the  bins  were  full.  In  this 
cellar,  besides  potatoes,  beets,  and  turnips,  were  stored  every 
year  some  hundred  bushels  of  apples — the  Rhode  Island  Green- 
ing, the  Roxbury  Russet,  the  Russet  round  the  Stem,  as  it  was 
called,  and  the  Spitzenberg  ;  not  daintily  picked,  but  shaken 
down  ;  not  in  aristocratic  barrels  set  up  in  rows,  but  ox-carts 
full  ;  not  handled  softly,  but  poured  from  baskets  into  great  bins, 
as  we  poured  potatoes  into  their  resting-place.  If  they  bruised 
and  rotted,  let  them.  We  had  enough  and  to  spare.  Two 
seasons  of  picking  over  apples — a  sort  of  grand  assizes — but  the 
matter  all  right.  In  all  my  boyhood  I  never  dreamed  of  apples 
as  things  possible  to  be  stolen.  So  abundant  were  they,  so  abso- 
lutely open  to  all  comers — who  went  down  into  the  cellar  by  the 
inside  stairs  instead  of  the  outside  steps — that  we  should  as  soon 
have  thought  of  being  cautioned  against  taking  turnips,  or  asking 
leave  to  take  a  potato.  Apples  were  as  common  as  air.  And 
that  was  early  in  December  and  January  ;  for  I  noticed  that  the 
sun  was  no  more  fond  than  I  was  of  staying  out  a  great  while  on 
those  Litchfield  hills,  but  ran  in  early  to  warm  his  fingers,  as  I  did 
mine.  When  the  day  was  done,  and  the  candles  were  lighted, 
and  the  supper  was  out  of  the  way,  we  all  gathered  about  the  great 
kitchen  fire  ;  and  soon  after  George  or  Henry  had  to  go  down  for 
apples.  Generally  it  was  Henry.  A  boy's  hat  is  a  universal 
instrument.  It  is  a  bat  to  smack  butterflies  with,  a  bag  to  fetch 
berries  in,  a  basket  for  stones  to  pelt  frogs  withal,  a  measure  to 
bring  up 'apples  in.  And  a  big-headed  boy's  old  felt  hat  was  not 
stingy  in  its  quantities  ;  and  Avhen  its  store  ended,  the  errand 
could  always  be  repeated.  To  eat,  six,  eight,  and  twelve  apples 
in  an  evening  was  no  great  feat  for  a  growing  young  lad,  whose 
stomach  was  no  more  in  danger  of  dyspepsia  than  the  neighbor- 
hood mill,  through  whose  body  passed  thousands  of  bushels  of 


583  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

corn,  leaving  it  no  fatter  at  the  end  of  the  year  than  at  the  begin- 
ning. Cloyed  with  apples  ?  To  eat  an  apple  is  to  want  to  eat 
another.  We  tire  of  cherries,  of  peaches,  of  strawberries,  of 
figs,  of  grapes  (I  say  it  with  reverence  in  this  presence  !)  but  never 
of  apples.  Nay,  when  creature  comforts  fail,  and  the  heart — 
hopeless  voyager  on  the  troubled  sea  of  life — is  sick,  apples  are 
comforters  ;  or,  wherefore  is  it  written  : 

"  As  the  apple-tree  among  the  trees  of  the  wood,  so  is  my 
beloved  among  the  sons.  I  sat  down  under  his  shadow  with 
great  delight,  and  his  fruit  was  sweet  to  my  taste.  He  brought 
me  to  the  banqueting  house,  and  his  banner  over  me  was  love. 
Stay  me  with  flagons," — undoubtedly  of  cider  ! — "  comfort  me 
with  apples  ;  for  I  am  sick  of  love." 

If  this  IS  the  cure  of  love,  we  may  the  better  understand  why 
the  popular  instinct  should  have  resorted  to  the  apple-tree  as  a 
cure  for  ambition,  singing, 

•■  We  '11  hang  JefE  Davis  on  a  sour-apple  tree." 

There  is,  in  this  toothsomeness  of  the  apple,  together  with  its 
utter  harralessness,  a  provision  for  nurses  and  mothers.  There  is 
a  growing  period  when  children  are  voracious.  They  must  be 
filled  ;  and  it  is  a  matter  of  great  account  to  know  what  to  fill 
them  with.  If  you  give  them  but  bread,  that  seems  meagre. 
Pies,  cakes,  and  sweetmeats  are  mischievous  ;  and  yet  more  so  are 
candies  and  confections.  Apples  just  hit  the  mark.  They  are 
more  than  a  necessary  of  life,  and  less  than  a  luxury.  They  stand 
just  half-way  between  bread  and  cake,  as  wholesome  as  one  and 
as  good  as  the  other. 

But  now  I  enter  upon  the  realm  of  uses,  culinary  and  domes- 
tic, where,  were  I  an  ancient  poet,  I  should  stop  and  invoke  all 
the  gods  to  my  aid.  But  the  gods  are  all  gone  ;  and  next  to 
them  is  that  blessing  of  the  world,  the  housewife.  Her  I  invoke, 
and  chiefly  one  who  taught  me,  by  her  kitchen  magic,  to  believe 
that  the  germ  of  civilization  is  in  the  art  and  science  of  the 
kitchen.  Is  there,  among  fruits,  one  other  that  has  so  wide  a 
range,  or  a  range  so  important,  so  exquisite,  so  wonderful,  as  the 
range  of  the  apple  in  the  kitchen  ? 

First,  consider  it  as  a  fruit-vegetable.  It  might  with  great 
advantage  take  its  place  upon  the  table  as  regularly  as  the  potato 


AGRICULTURAL.  583 

or  tlie  onion.  Far  more  odorous  is  the  onion,  but,  I  think,  far 
more  blessed  is  the  apple.  It  is  an  admirable  accompaniment  of 
meat,  which  always  craves  a  piquant  acid  for  relish.  And  when 
meat  is  wanting,  a  scrap  of  pork  in  the  frying-pan,  with  sliced 
apples,  will  serve  the  economic  table  almost  as  well  as  if  it  had 
been  carved  from  a  beef  or  cut  from  a  sheep. 

We  do  not  use  the  apple  enough  in  our  cooking.  As  a  fruit 
upon  the  table  it  may  be  used  for  breakfast,  for  supper,  for 
dessert.  Roasted  apples  !  Baked  apples  !  What  visions  come 
before  my  mind  !  Not  the  baked  apples  of  the  modern  stove, 
which  has  humbled  their  glory.  They  are  still  worth  eating,  but 
they  have  lost  the  stature,  the  comeliness,  and  the  romance  of  the 
old  roasted  apples,  that  were  placed  in  due  order  between  the 
huge  andirons,  and  turned  duly  by  the  careful  servant,  drinking 
in  heat  on  one  side  and  oxygen  on  the  other,  and  coming  to  a 
degree  of  luxurious  nicety  that  will  never  be  attained  till  we  go 
back  again  to  the  old  fireplace.  It  was  a  real  pleasure  to  be  sick 
— I  mean  on  the  hither  border  of  sickness  ;  so  that  we  might  not 
go  to  school,  and  so  that,  while  we  took  a  little  magnesia,  we 
might  feast  on  delicious  roasted  apples.  And  as  for  baked  apples 
and  milk,  how  can  I  adequately  speak  of  that  most   excellent  dish  ! 

Then,  again,  the  apple  may  be  regarded  as  a  confection,  serving 
in  the  form  of  tarts,  pies — blessed  be  the  unknown  person  who 
invented  the  apple-pie  !  Did  I  know  where  the  grave  of  that 
person  was,  methinks  I  would  make  a  devout  pilgrimage  thither, 
and  rear  a  monument  over  it  that  should  mark  the  spot  to  the 
latest  generations.  Of  all  pies,  of  every  name,  the  apple-pie  is 
easily  the  first  and  chief.  And  what  shall  I  say  of  jellies,  dump- 
lings, puddings  and  various  preserves,  that  are  made  from  the 
apple  ? 

It  might  seem  hard,  in  this  enumeration  of  the  many  forms  in 
which  the  apple  is  made  to  contribute  to  the  benefit  of  mankind, 
not  to  notice  that  form  in  which  it  defies  age — I  refer  to  the  dried 
apple.  No  festoons  are  more  comely  than  were  those  half  circles 
that  used  to  decorate  the  rafters  of  the  old-fashioned  kitchen.  I 
confess  that  no  dried  fruit  is  worthy  to  be  called  fruit,  whether 
it  be  huckleberry,  or  peach,  or  pear,  or  apple.  Once  dried,  these 
things  have  lost  the  soul  of  their  flavor  ;  and  no  coddling,  no 
soaking,   no  experimenting,   will   ever  bring  them  back  to  what 


584  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

they  were  in  their  original  fresh  life.  You  cannot  give  youth  to 
old  age  in  apples  any  more  than  among  men.  And  yet,  as  a 
souvenir,  as  a  sad  remeiubrancer  of  days  gone  by,  dried  apples  are 
very  good. 

Next,  we  naturally  consider  the  use  of  apples  as  food  for  stock 
— for  swine,  for  horses,  and  for  cattle.  This  use  of  them  is 
known  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  they  are  not  thus  employed  near 
so  much  as  their  benefits  would  justify. 

Last  of  all,  let  me  speak  of  cider  ;  for,  although  the  days  of 
temperance  have  banished  cider  from  its  former  and  almost  uni- 
versal position  upon  the  farmer's  table,  it  is  creeping  back  again. 
Not  daring  to  come  in  its  own  name,  it  comes  in  the  name  of  a 
neighbor,  and  is  called  champagne.  But  whether  it  comes  in  one 
form  or  another,  it  still  is  savory  of  the  orchard  ;  still  it  brings 
warmth  to  chilly  veins  ;  still  it  is  a  contribution  to  many  a  homely 
domestic  festival.  And  though  I  cannot,  as  a  temperance  man, 
exhort  you  to  make  it,  I  must  say,  that  if  you  loill  make  it,  you 
bad  better  make  it  good  ! 

But  woe  to  him  who  takes  another  step  in  that  direction  ! 
Cider-brandy  is  a  national  disgrace.  How  great  is  the  calamity 
that  impends  over  a  community  that  makes  cider-brandy  may  be 
known  by  the  recent  history  of  the  Shenandoah  valley  ;  it  being 
declared  by  several  of  the  Richmond  papers  that  the  defeat  of 
Early  was  owing  to  the  abundance  of  apple-jack  there. 

It  only  remains  that  I  should  say  a  single  word  on  the  subject 
of  the  apple  as  an  article  of  commerce.  Whether  fresh  or  dried, 
it  is  still,  in  that  relation,  a  matter  of  no  small  importance.  The 
home  market  is  enlarging  every  year  ;  and  as  soon  as  the  apple 
shall  become  so  cheap  that  all  men  may  have  it  no  matter  how 
poor  they  may  be,  the  market  must  of  necessity  have  become  very 
much  augmented.  Many  men  suppose  that  as  orchards  increase 
and  fruit  multiplies  the  profits  diminish.  Such  is  not  the  fact. 
As  the  commoner  kinds  multipl}',  and  the  common  people  learn 
to  use  them  as  daily  food,  the  finer  kinds  will  bear  proportionally 
higher  prices  ;  and  cheapness  is  one  of  the  steps  to  profit  in  all 
things  that  are  consumed  in  the  community.  And  I  should  be 
glad  to  see  the  day  when,  for  a  few  pence,  every  drayman,  every 
common  laborer  in  every  city,  should  be  able  to  bring  as  much 
fruit  to  his  house  every  day  as  his  family  could  consume  in  that 


AGRICULTURAL.  585 

day.  I  should  be  glad  to  see  in  our  cities,  what  is  to  be  seen  to 
some  extent  in  the  cities  of  Europe,  the  time  when  a  penny  oi 
two  will  enable  a  man  to  bring  home  enough  flowers  to  decorate 
his  table  of  food  twice  a  day. 

We  have  not  merely  in  view  the  profits  of  raising  fruit  when 
we  exhort  you  to  bestow  your  attention  on  the  apple  more  and 
more  as  an  article  of  commerce  ;  we  have  also  in  view  the  social 
influence  which  it  may  be  made  to  exert.  I  hold  that  when  in 
any  respect  you  lift  the  common  people  up,  whether  by  giving 
them  a  better  dwelling,  by  placing  within  their  reach  better  furni- 
ture, or  by  enabling  them  to  furnish  their  table  better,  you  are 
raising  them  toward  self-respect  ;  you  are  raising  them  toward  the 
higher  positions  in  society.  For,  although  all  men  should  start 
with  the  democracy,  all  men  have  a  right  to  stop  with  the  aris- 
tocracy. Let  all  put  their  feet  on  the  same  level  ;  and  then  let 
them  shoot  as  high  as  they  please.  Blessed  is  the  man  that 
knows  how  to  overtop  his  neighbors  by  a  fair  development  of  skill 
and  strength.  And  every  single  step  of  advance  in  general  culti- 
vation, even  though  it  is  brought  about  by  so  humble  an  instru- 
mentality as  the  multiplication  of  fruit,  or  anything  else  that  aug- 
ments the  range  of  healthful  enjoyment  among  the  common 
people,  not  only  stimulates  their  moral  growth,  but,  through  that 
growth  gives  the  classes  above  them  a  better  chance  to  grow. 
One  of  the  most  efficient  ways  of  elevating  the  whole  community 
is  to  multiply  the  means  of  livelihood  among  the  poorest  and 
commonest. 

I  will  not  finish  my  remarks  with  those  elaborate  statistics  or 
with  those  admirable  and  eloquent  periods  with  which  I  should  be 
pleased  to  entertain  you,  for  two  reasons  :  first,  because  I  would 
not  consume  your  time  at  so  late  an  hour  ;  and,  secondly, 
because  I  have  none  of  these  things  at  hand  ! 

OUR    CREED. 

We  believe  in  small  farms  and  thorough  cultivation. 

We  believe  that  soil  loves  to  eat  as  well  as  its  owner,  and  ought, 
therefore  to  be  manured. 

We  believe  in  large  crops  which  leave  the  land  better  than  they 
found  it — making  both  the  farm  and  the  farmer  rich  at  once. 

We  believe  in  going  to  the  bottom  of  things,  and,  therefore,  in 


586  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

deep  plougliing,  and  enough  of  it.  All  the  better  if  with  a  sub- 
soil plough. 

We  believe  that  every  farm  should  own  a  good  farmer. 

We  believe  that  the  best  fertilizer  of  any  soil  is  a  spirit  of 
industry,  enterprise,  and  intelligence — without  this,  lime  and 
gypsum,  bones  and  green  manure,  marl  and  guano,  will  be  of  little 
use. 

We  believe  in  good  fences,  good  barns,  good  farm-houses,  good 
stock,  good  orchards,  and  children  enough  to  gather  the  fruit. 

We  believe  in  a  clean  kitchen,  a  neat  wife  in  it,  a  spinning 
piano,  a  clean  cupboard,  a  clean  dairy,  and  a  clean  conscieuce. 

We  firmly  disbelieve  in  farmers  that  will  not  improve  ;  in  farms 
that  grow  poorer  every  year  ;  in  starveling  cattle  ;  in  farmers' 
boys  turning  into  clerks  and  merchants,  in  farmers'  daughters 
unwilling  to  work,  and  in  all  farmers  ashamed  of  their  vocation, 
or  who  drink  whiskey  till  honest  people  are  ashamed  of  them. 


HUMOROUS. 


MODERN  CONVENIENCES  AND    FIRST-CLASS  HOUSES. 

There  are  many  persons  who  suppose  that  people  who  live  in 
first-class  houses,  with  all  the  modern  improvements,  must  of 
course  be  much  puffed  up,  and  that  they  become  quite  grand  in 
their  own  eyes.  It  is  true,  sometimes,  that  fine  houses  have 
proud  people  in  them.  We  can  imagine  a  pride  so  reluctant  of 
discipline,  and  so  indocile,  as  to  survive  in  spite  of  the  experience 
of  a  first-class  house.  But  we  suspect  the  same  of  very  poor  tene- 
ments. 

When  we  moved  into  a  capacious  brown-stone  dwelling,  our 
better  nature,  with  great  simplicity,  whispered,  "  Beware  of 
temptation."  And,  with  an  ignorance  quite  as  simple,  we  sup- 
posed that  the  thieves  of  grace  would  be  found  lurking  in  large 
rooms,  at  ambush  behind  cornices  reproduced  from  old  Rome,  or 
in  stately  appearances  !  How  little  did  we  suspect  that  these  were 
harmless,  and  that  very  different  elements  were  to  moth  our 
patience  ! 

But  let  a  little  preliminary  exultation  of  a  new  man  in  a  new  place 
be  forgiven,  ye  who  are  now  established  !  Remember  your  own 
household  fervor  on  first  setting  up,  while  we  recount  our  eco- 
nomic joy,  and  anticipations  of  modern  conveniences  that  would 
take  away  all  human  care,  and  speed  life  upon  a  down-hill  path, 
where  it  was  to  be  easier  to  move  than  to  stand  still  !  Every- 
thing was  admirable  I  The  attic  had  within  it  a  tank  so  large  as 
better  to  be  called  a  reservoir.  Down  from  it  ran  the  serviceable 
pipes  to  every  part  of  the  dwelling.  Each  chamber  had  its  invis- 
ible water-maid  in  the  w^all,  ready  to  spring  the  floods  upon  you 
by  the  mere  turn  of  your  hand  ;  then  the  bath-room,  with  tub, 
douche,    shower,    and  indeed  various  and   universal   squirt — up, 


588  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

down,  and  promiscuous.  The  kitclien,  too — the  tubs  with  water 
waiting  to  leap  into  them,  the  long  cylinder  by  the  side  of  the 
fire,  as  if  the  range  had  its  baby  wrapped  up,  and  set  perpendicu- 
lar in  the  corner  to  nurse.  But  greatest  of  all  admirations  was 
the  furnace  !  This  too,  was  interframed  with  the  attic  tank  ;  for 
it  v/as  a  hot-water  furnace.  For  a  time  this  was  our  peculiar 
pride.  The  water  flowed  down  into  a  system  of  coiled  tubes, 
which  were  connected  with  the  boiler  surrounding  the  furnace 
fire.  The  idea  was,  when  the  water  got  as  hot  as  it  could  well 
bear,  that  it  should  frisk  out  of  one  end  of  the  boiler  into  the 
pipes,  and  round  through  the  whole  system,  and  come  back  into 
the  other  end  cooled  off.  Thus  a  complete  arterial  system  was 
established — the  boiler  being  the  heart,  the  water  the  blood,  the 
pipes  at  the  hot  end  the  arteries,  and  the  return  pipes  at  the  cool 
end  the  veins  —  the  whole  inclosed  in  a  brick  chamber,  from 
which  the  air  warmed  by  this  liquid  heat  was  given  off  to  the 
dwelling.  It  was  a  day  of  great  glory  when  we  thought  the  chill 
in  the  air  required  a  fire  in  the  furnace.  The  fact  was  that  we 
wanted  to  play  with  our  pet,  and  were  half  vexed  with  the  old 
conservative  thermometer,  that  would  not  come  down,  and  admit 
that  it  was  cold  enough  for  a  fire.  However,  we  do  not  recollect 
ever  afterward  to  have  been  so  eager. 

In  the  first  place,  we  never  could  raise  enough  heat  to  change 
the  air  in  the  house  more  than  from  cold  to  chill.  We  piled  in 
the  coal,  and  watched  the  thermometer  ;  ran  down  for  coal  again, 
and  ran  back  to  watch  the  thermometer.  We  brought  home  coal, 
exchanged  glances  over  the  bill  with  the  consulting  partner,  and 
made  silent  estimates  of  the  expenses  of  the  whole  winter,  if  this 
were  but  the  beginning.  But  there  was  the  old  red  dragon  in 
the  cellar  devouring  coal  remorselessly,  with  his  long  iron  tail 
folded  and  coiled  in  the  furnace  chamber  without  heat.  Thus, 
for  a  series  of  weeks,  we  fired  off  the  furnace  in  the  cellar  at  the 
thermometer  in  the  parlor,  and  never  hit.  But  we  did  accomplish 
other  things.  Once  the  fire  was  driven  so  hard  tliat  steam  began 
to  form  and  rumble  and  blow  off,  very  innocently  ;  but  the  girls 
did  not  know  that,  and  took  to  their  heels  for  fear  of  being  blown 
up.  When  the  cause  was  discovered,  the  remedy  was  not  easy, 
for  the  furnace  bottom  was  immovable,  and  the  fire  could  not  be 
let  down.     But  our  Joan  of  Arc  assailed  the  enemy  in  his  own 


HUMOROUS.  589 

camp,  and  threw  a  bucket  of  water  into  the  fire.  This  produced 
several  effects  :  it  put  out  the  fire,  it  also  put  out  so  much  gas, 
steam,  and  ashes  that  the  maiden  was  quite  put  out  also.  And 
more  than  all,  it  cracked  the  boiler.  But  this  we  did  not  know 
till  some  time  afterward.  There  were  a  few  days  of  compara- 
tive rest.  The  weather  was  mild  out  of  doors,  and  cold  within. 
It  was  soon  reported  that  one  of  the  pipes  was  stopped  up  in  the 
chamber,  for  the  water  would  not  flow.  The  plumber  was  sent 
for.  He  was  already  well  acquainted  witli  the  way  to  the 
house.  He  brought  upon  himself  a  laugh  of  ridicule  by  sug- 
gesting that  the  water  had  given  out  in  the  tank  !  Water 
given  out  ?  We  turned  inwardly  pale  behind  the  outward  red 
of  laughing.  We  thought  we  had  a  pocket-ocean  upstairs. 
Up  we  marched,  climbed  up  the  sides,  peered  down  to  the 
dirty  bottom  of  an  emptied  tank  !  Alas  !  the  whole  house  was 
symmetrically  connected.  Everything  depended  upon  this  tank  ; 
the  furnace  in  the  cellar,  the  range  in  the  kitchen,  the  laundry 
department,  all  the  washing  apparatus  of  the  chambers,  the  con- 
venient china-closet  sink,  where  things  were  to  be  washed  with- 
out going  downstairs,  the  entry  closets,  and  almost  everything 
else,  except  the  door-bell,  were  made  to  go  by  v/ater,  and  now  the 
universal  motive-power  was  gone  !  A  new  system  of  conv^eniences 
was  now  developed.  We  stationed  an  Irish  engine  at  the  force- 
pump  to  throw  up  water  into  the  tank  from  the  street  cistern. 
Blessings  be  on  that  cistern  in  the  street  !  No  man  knew  how 
deep  that  was.  Like  the  p  ^nd  in  every  village,  nobody  had 
ever  found  bottom.  And  so  we  limped  along  for  a  few  days. 
Meanwhile,  the  furnace  having  been  examined,  the  secret  of  all  this 
trouble  was  detected.  The  life-blood  of  the  house  had  been 
oozing  and  flowing  away  through  this  furnace  !  How  much 
•would  it  cost  to  repair  it  ?  More  money  than  a  hot-air  furnace 
would  cost,  and  half  more  than  that  !  So  we  determined  to  clear 
out  the  pet.  Alas  (again)  how  we  fondled  the  favorite  at  first, 
and  how  contemptuously  we  kicked  it  at  last  !  It  is  said  that  no 
one  is  a  whole  man  ;  we  have  partial  gifts.  In  our  own  case,  the 
gift  of  buying  was  liberally  bestowed,  but  the  talent  for  selling 
was  either  withheld  or  lay  an  undeveloped  embryo.  How  to  sell 
the  old  furnace  and  to  get  a  new  one  !  There  is  a  great  psycho- 
logical  experience   there.     We   aroused    ourselves,   gave  several 


590  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

days  to  contemplation,  laid  aside  all  other  cares,  ran  from  furnace 
to  furnace,  saw  six  or  eight  patterns,  each  one  of  which  was 
better  than  all  the  others,  and  all  of  them  were  able  to  evolve  vast 
quantities  of  heat,  with  an  imaginary  amount  of  fuel.  But  fort- 
une, that  had  so  long  persecuted  us,  did  not  presume  to  destroy 
us  yet,  and,  as  a  cat  with  a  rat,  let  us  out  of  its  paws  for  a 
moment's  ease.  In  other  words,  we  arranged  with  Messrs. 
Kichardson  &  Boynton  to  put  their  furnace  in  the  place  of  the 
hot-air  gentleman  in  black.  And  to  this  hour  we  have  been  glad  of 
it.  A  winter  and  a  half  on  Brooklyn  Heights  will  put  any  fur- 
nace to  proof.  And  we  are  prepared  to  defy  the  north  wind,  the 
west,  or  the  boisterous  southwest.  They  may  heap  winter  as 
high  as  they  please  without,  we  have  summer  within. 

But  O  the  changing  !  It  was  mid- winter.  The  mild  weather 
took  this  chance  to  go  Southland  got  in  its  place  the  niggardliest 
fellow  that  ever  stood  sentinel  in  Kamtschatka.  The  cellar  was 
divided  from  the  kitchen  in  part  by  this  furnace.  For  two  or 
three  weeks  they  were  chiselling  the  tubes  apart,  and  getting  the 
rubbish  out  of  the  way — masons,  tenders,  ironmen,  old  iron  and 
new  iron,  tin  pipes,  carpenters,  and  new  air-boxes,  girls  and 
dinner,  the  Irishman  wheezing  at  the  pump — all  mixed  in  such 
confusion,  that  language  under  the  tower  of  Babel  was  a  eupho- 
nious literature  in  comparison.  Sometimes,  as  we  walked  out,  our 
good  and  loving  deacons,  in  a  delicate  way,  would  warn  us  of  the 
danger  of  being  puffed  up  with  the  pride  of  a  stylish  house  ! 

At  length,  after  nearly  six  weeks  of  the  coldest  weather  of  the 
season,  the  new  furnace  took  charge  of  the  house.  Water 
returned  to  the  attic.  The  girls  no  longer  dreaded  being  blown 
up  by  the  boiler  at  the  range.  But  the  report  came  up  that  the 
sinks  were  stopped.  After  investigation,  the  kitchen  floor  must 
be  ripped  up,  the  great  waste-pipe  reached  by  digging,  and  laid 
open.  Broken  tumblers,  plates,  and  cups  stopped  up  the  pipes. 
Another  week  for  this.  Just  as  we  were  sitting  down  to  a  danger- 
ous peace,  we  walked  to  the  window  one  morning,  to  see  that  our 
yard  had  disappeared  !  The  roof  of  the  store  on  which  it  was 
laid  had  given  way,  and  carried  down  all  the  earth,  crashing 
through  the  four  stories  to  the  ground  I  Just  one  thing  more 
was  needed — that  the  house  itself  should  slide  off  bodily,  and 
dump  itself  into  the  East  River  !     Yet    the  misfortune  was  not 


HUMOROUS.  591 

without  comfort.  The  store  was  used  for  grinding  drugs.  Ten 
thousand  pounds  of  salts,  ipecac,  rhubarb,  strychnine,  and  such 
like  delicacies,  were  hidden  beneath  a  hundred  tons  of  earth — the 
medicine  being,  where  many  people  for  whom  it  was  destined 
would  have  been,  buried  under  ground.  For  several  weeks  after- 
ward, I  think  the  bills  of  mortality  improved  in  the  region 
around. 

There  were  a  great  number  of  other  things  exceedingly  con- 
venient in  our  house.  The  water-pipe  from  the  roof  to  the  front 
cistern  was  carried  down  within  the  wall  to  the  ground.  The 
bitter  cold  froze  it  up.  Nobody  could  get  at  it.  We  salted  it, 
we  poked  hot  irons  into  the  tap,  we  took  counsel,  and  finally  let 
it  alone.  The  cornice  leaked,  the  walls  were  damp,  the  ceiling 
threatened  to  come  off  ;  our  neighbor's  pipe  discharged  so  much 
of  its  contents  on  the  ground  as  to  saturate  the  wall  in  our  base- 
ment entry,  the  area  overflowed  into  the  cellar,  we  dug  a  cess- 
pool to  let  it  off,  and  cut  through  the  cistern  pipe  leading  to  the 
kitchen  pump.  It  could  not  be  soldered  with  water  in  it,  and  the 
cistern  must  be  run  dry  before  that  could  be  fixed.  The  attic 
tank  gave  out  again.     No  water  ! 

"  Water,  water  everywhere, 
And  not  a  drop" — 

to  wash  with.  Then  came  on  a  system  of  begging.  "VVe  took 
the  neighborhood  in  order,  and  went  from  house  to  house,  till  we 
exhausted  the  patience  and  the  cisterns  of  every  friend  within 
reach.  Then  we  betook  ourselves  to  the  street  pump,  and  for  two 
months  we  and  the  milkman  subsisted  upon  that. 

There  was  a  grand  arrangement  of  bells  at  our  front  door  which 
seldom  failed  to  make  everybody  outside  mad  because  they  would 
not  ring,  or  everybody  inside  mad  because  they  rang  so  furiously. 
The  contrivance  was,  that  two  bells  should  be  rung  by  one  wire  ; 
a  common  bell  in  the  servants'  entry,  and  a  gong  in  the  upper 
entry.  The  bell-train  was  so  heavy  to  draw,  that  it  never  oper- 
ated till  the  man  got  angry  and  pulled  with  the  strength  of  an  ox. 
But  then  it  went  off  with  such  a  crash  and  jingle,  that  one  would 
think  a  band  of  music  with  all  its  cymbals  had  fallen  through  the 
sky-light  down  into  the  entry.  Thus,  women,  children,  and 
modest  men  seldom  got  in,  and  sturdy  beggars  had  it  all  their  own 
way.     It  was  quite    edifying    to    see  experiments  performed  on 


592  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

that  bell.  A  man  would  first  give  a  modest  pull — and  tlien 
reflect  what  he  was  about  to  say.  No  one  coming,  he  gave  a 
longer  pull,  and  returned  to  waiting  and  meditation,  A  third 
pull  was  the  preface  to  stepping  back,  surveying  the  windows, 
looking  into  the  area,  when,  seeing  signs  of  unquestionable  habita- 
tion, he  returns  with  flushed  face  to  the  bell.  Now  for  it  !  He 
pulls  as  if  he  held  a  line  by  the  side  of  a  river  with  a  thirty-pound 
salmon  on  it  ;  while  all  the  bells  go  off,  up  and  down,  till  the 
house  seemed  full  of  bells.  Things  are  not  mended  when  he  finds 
the  gentleman  of  the  house  is  not  at  home  !  We  fear  that  much 
grace  has  been  lost  at  that  front  door. 

In  the  midst  of  these  luxuries  of  a  first-class  house,  we  some- 
times would  look  wistfully  oat  of  the  window,  tempted  to  envy 
the  unconscious  happiness  of  our  two-story  neighbors.  They  had 
no  conveniences,  and  were  at  peace  ;  while  we  had  all  manner  of 
conveniences,  that  drove  us  up  and  down  stairs — now  to  keep 
the  flood  out,  and  then  to  bring  it  in  ;  now  to  raise  a  heat,  then  to 
keep  off  a  conflagration  ;  so  that  we  were  but  little  better  off  at 
home  than  are  those  innocently  insane  people  who  leave  home 
every  summer,  and  go  into  the  country  to  take  care  of  twenty 
trunks  for  two  months.  But  the  cruellest  thing  of  all,  as  we 
stood  at  the  window,  was  the  pious  looks  of  passers-by,  who 
seemed  to  say  with  their  eyes,  "  A  man  cannot  expect  much 
grace  that  lives  in  such  a  fine  house." 

It  has  certainly  been  a  means  of  grace  to  us  !  Never  such  a 
field  for  patience,  such  humbling  of  expectations  and  high  looks. 
If  it  would  not  seem  like  trifling  with  serious  subjects,  when  asked 
how  one  might  attain  to  perfection,  we  should  advise  him  to  buy 
a  first-class  house  with  modern  improvements,  and  live  in  it  for  a 
year.  If  that  did  not  fit  him  for  translation,  he  might  well 
despair  of  any  chance. 

Ye  who  envj'  us,  will  you  exchange  with  us  ?  Ye  who  laugh 
sarcastically  at  ministerial  luxury,  will  3'ou  lend  us  your  sackcloth 
and  take  our  conveniences  ?  But  those  who  do  live  in  houses 
full  of  conveniences  will  henceforth  be  our  fast  friends.  They 
will  say,  What  if  he  is  abolitionist,  and  we  pro-slavery  ?  What  if 
he  is  radical,  and  we  conservative  ?  The  poor  fellow  lives  in  a 
first-class  house,  and  is  punished  enough  without  our  adding  to 
his  misfortunes  ! 


HUMOROUS.  593 

Meanwhile  we  practise  the  same  charity.  We  rail  no  more  at 
Fifth  Avenae,  and  admire  what  saintly  virtue  enables  so  many  to 
carry  cheerful  faces,  who  live  in  houses  with  even  more  conven- 
iences than  ours.  We  are  grateful  for  our  happier  lot.  Though 
we  are  worse  off  than  people  in  two-story  houses,  how  much 
better  are  we  placed  than  if  we  lived  in  Fifth  Avenue  ! 

We  bear  our  burden  patiently,  knowing  that  in  the  very 
moment  of  despair  persons  are  at  the  very  point  of  deliverance. 
Who  knows  but  he  may  have  a  fire  as  well  as  his  neighbors  2 
One  hour  would  suflBce  to  set  a  man  free  from  all  his  troubles,  and 
permit  him  to  walk  the  streets  at  liberty,  unharassqd  by  plumbers, 
carpenters,  tinners,  glaziers,  gas-fixers,  carpet-fitters,  bell-hangers, 
and  the  whole  tribe  of  bell-pullers  ! 

We  are  now  living  at  peace.  We  are  in  a  plain  two-story 
country  house  without  "  conveniences."  We  are  recruiting. 
Nothing  gets  out  of  order.  We  do  not  wake  to  hear  water  trick- 
ling from  bursted  pipes  ;  we  have  no  chandelier  to  fall  down  ;  the 
gas  never  leaks  ;  we  are  not  afraid  to  use  our  furniture  ;  our 
chairs  have  no  linen  clothes  on  ;  the  carpets  are  without  drugget. 
The  children  bless  the  country  and  a  country  house,  in  which  they 
are  not  always  scratching  something,  or  hitting  something  with 
shoe,  or  button,  or  finger-nails.  And  we  already  feel  that  a  few 
weeks  more  will  so  far  invigorate  us  that  we  shall  be  able  to  return 
for  a  ten  months'  life  in  a  modern  house  with  conveniences. 

36 


r 


CLOSING  YEARS. 


CLOSING    YEARS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

LAST    VISIT    TO    ENGLAND — SEVENTIETH    BIRTHDAY,    ETC. 

The  life  of  the  pastor  is  not  ordinarily  eventful.  The  pastoral 
life  of  Mr.  Beecher  has  been  no  exception  to  the  general  rule  of  pas- 
torates ;  he  has  continued  to  preach  in  Plymouth  pulpit  to  great 
congregations,  which  in  size  and  attention  have  been  as  phenomenal 
as  when  he  was  the  novelty  of  forty  years  ago.  Ordinarily,  not 
only  every  pew,  br  t  every  aisle  seat  has  been  occupied  ;  often  men 
and  women  have  flood  about  the  door  and  in  such  few  passage- 
ways as  are  not  provided  w^th  chairs.  If  there  has  been  any 
diminution,  it  has  been  in  the  number  of  those  turned  away  from 
the  door  unable  to  obtain  an  entrance.  The  church  itself  numbers 
twenty-five  hundred  members  ;  more  significant  than  the  size  of 
the  church  is  the  fact  that  only  a  little  over  one  third  of  these 
members  are  women.  Mr.  Beecher's  life,  however,  during  these 
few  years,  has  been  marked  by  four  incidents,  which  are  significant 
of  the  hold  he  had  upon  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  public,  and  of 
his  own  sturdy  independence,  his  freedom  from  traditional  theories, 
and  his  inherent  spirit  of  progress. 

In  1883,  under  the  auspices  of  Mr.  J.  B.  Pond,  Mr.  Beecher 
made  a  lecture  tour  through  the  great  Northwest,  to  Washington 
Territory,  thence  to  San  Francisco,  Colorado,  Utah,  Texas,  Ala- 
bama, Georgia,  and  thence  returning  home.  In  this  lecture  tour  he 
travelled  eighteen  thousand  five  hundred  miles,  and  lectured 
seventy-five  times.  Everywhere— West,  South,  and  on  the  Pacific 
Coast — he  was  cordially  welcomed.  This  lecture  tour  in  his  own 
country  was  followed  by  one   in    England   in    1886,    under   the 


598  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

auspices  of  the  same  business  manager.  The  welcome  in  England 
was  as  cordial  and  more  demonstrative  than  in  America,  and  the 
applications  to  lecture  exceeded  many  times  those  which  it  was 
possible  for  him  to  accept.  He  was  at  times  sharply  catechised 
as  to  his  theology,  but  invariably  answered  such  inquiries,  when 
civilly  put,  with  frankness  and  good  humor  ;  and  on  his  return  told 
his  own  people  that  he  found  a  much  greater  liberty  of  thought  in 
the  Dissenting  churches  of  Eno-land  than  in  the  churches  of  like 
faith  and  order  in  the  United  States.  His  last  public  service  in 
England  was  an  address  in  the  "  City  Temple  of  London,"  of 
which  the  Rev.  Joseph  Parker  is  pastor.  The  audience  consisted 
mainly  of  ministers  and  theological  students  gathered  to  hear  an 
address  from  him  on  "  Preaching,"  which  was  in  his  most  felici- 
tous style  ;  it  will  be  found  elsewhere  in  this  volume.  Among 
those  on  the  occasion  of  this  visit  to  England,  to  do  honor 
to  the  "  editor,  the  orator,  and  the  preacher,"  were  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, Lord  Iddesleigh,  Professor  Bryce,  the  Dean  of  West- 
minster, the  Dean  of  Canterbury,  Archdeacon  Farrar,  Canon 
Fleming,  Canon  Wilberforce,  the  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts,  Ellen 
Terry, .  Henry  Irving,  Professor  Tyndall,  Sir  John  Lubbock, 
George  Jacob  Holyoake,  and  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  We  doubt 
whether  a  more  enthusiastic  reception  has  ever  been  given  to  any 
American,  and  we  have  not  forgotten  the  enthusiasm  with  which 
England  has  welcomed  Irving,  Longfellow,  Grant,  Talmage,  and 
Holmes. 

This  popular  enthusiasm  for  Mr.  Beecher  is  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  those  who  live  at  a  distance  and  know  him  only  by  his 
great  reputation.  There  is  no  city  in  either  country  which  has  so 
delighted  to  do  him  honor  as  the  city  of  Brooklyn,  which  has 
been  for  forty  years  his  home  ;  of  this  a  striking  demonstration 
was  afforded  by  the  celebratiorr  in  that  city  of  his  seventieth  birth- 
day. This  occurred  on  Monday  evening,  June  25th,  1883,  when  the 
Academy  of  Music  of  Brooklyn  was  filled  to  overflowing  with  an 
audience  gathered  in  response  to  an  invitation  from  a  Committee 
of  Arrangements  composed  of  some  of  Brooklyn's  most  noteworthy 
citizens.  The  commencement  of  the  programme  was  announced 
for  eight  o'clock,  but  at  ten  minutes  past  seven  the  doors  were 
closed,  for  the  house  was  already  almost  dangerously  full.  Not 
only  was  every  seat  occupied,  but  the  aisles  near  the  door  were 


CLOSING   YEARS.  599 

packed  with  persons  who  stood  patiently  from  eight  till  eleven. 
Over  seven  hundred  invited  guests  were  on  the  spacious  stage. 
Among  them  were  most  of  the  leading  clergymen  of  Brooklyn  and 
many  from  New  York  City  ;  indeed,  it  would  take  far  less  space 
to  call  the  roll  of  the  eminent  men,  clergy  and  laity,  of  Brooklyn 
who  were  absent  than  of  those  who  were  present.  While  the  in- 
vited guests  were  arranging  themselves  a  throng  continued  to 
gather  in  the  street  outside,  in  that  curious  hope  which  always  ani- 
mates the  breast  of  such  a  crowd,  of  seeing  or  hearing  something 
by  being  at  hand.  In  this  case  it  was  destined  not  to  be  disap- 
pointed, for,  as  the  exercises  began  within  the  hall,  word  was  passed 
to  Mr.  Beecher,  and  he  went  out  and  spoke  a  few  words  of  wel- 
come and  counsel  to  those  without.  In  one  of  the  proscenium 
boxes  was  Mrs.  Beecher,  in  another  Mrs.  Stowe,  each  surrounded 
by  family  friends  and  carrying  in  the  face  the  witness  of  that  pride 
of  love  in  the  heart  which  only  a  wife,  a  sister,  or  a  mother  can 
know  on  such  an  occasion.  Judge  Neilson,  who  had  presided  on 
Mr.  Beecher's  trial,  called  the  meeting  to  order.  Rev.  Charles  H. 
Hall,  rector  of  Trinity  Church,  Brooklyn,  presided. 

The  addresses  of  the  evening  were  four  in  number  ;  Dr. 
Armitage  spoke  on  Mr.  Beecher  as  a  man,  Dr.  Robert  Collyer  on 
Mr.  Beecher's  English  campaign,  Dr.  Fulton  on  Mr.  Beecher  as  a 
Christian,  and  Mayor  Low  on  Mr.  Beecher  as  a  citizen.  Two 
unexpected  and  unannounced  features  furnished  pleasant  sur- 
prises to  the  audience — one,  the  presentation  of  a  silver  pitcher 
and  testimonial  to  Mr.  Beecher  from  a  Jewish  congregation, 
by  Rabbi  Wintener  of  the  Hebrew  Temple  Beth  Elohim  ;  the  other, 
the  presentation  of  greetings  from  Ireland,  by  Hon.  John  Bar- 
ry, M.P.,  who  chanced  to  be  upon  the  platform.  An  allusion 
in  Dr.  Armitage's  address  to  Mrs.  Stowe  brought  the  audi- 
ence to  their  feet  in  a  spontaneous  and  enthusiastic  demon- 
stration to  her.  It  was  considerably  after  ten  o'clock  when  Mr. 
Beecher  rose  to  make  the  closing  address  of  the  evening.  The 
entire  audience  rose  to  their  feet  to  greet  him  ;  the  clapping  of 
hands  and  waving  of  handkerchiefs  and  cheering  were  continued 
for  some  minutes,  and  closed  with  three  cheers  given  with  a  will. 
How  deeply  Mr.  Beecher  was  affected  was  shown  not  only  in  the 
deeply  religious  tone  of  his  address,  but  in  his  subdued  and  quiet 
manner,  for  his  voice  was  throughout  low  and  gentle,  scarcely  at 


600  HENRY   WARD  BEECHER. 

any  time  raised  above  a  conversational  tone.  It  seemed  at  times 
as  though  it  could  have  scarcely  been  audible  at  the  rear  of  the 
hall,  but  no  one  left  the  building.  The  address  was  characteristic 
of  the  man  ;  he  disowned  the  praises  that  had  been  heaped 
upon  him,  and,  gathering  them  up,  laid  them  at  the  feet  of  the 
Master,  saying,  as  he  did  so,  with  entire  simplicity,  "  By  the 
grace  of  God,  I  am  what  I  am." 

No  more  striking  test  of  Mr.  Beecher's  independence  of  charac- 
ter has  been  afforded  in  his  life  than  by  his  political  course  in  the 
Presidential  election  of  1884.  By  that  time  a  division  had  arisen 
within  the  Republican  Party.  The  majority  believed  that  there  was 
danger  that  the  South  would  recover  by  strategy  in  politics  what  it 
had  lost  by  the  war  :  not  that  slavery  or  secession  would  be  trium- 
phant, but  that  the  old  Southern  spirit  would  dominate  the  nation. 
They  believed,  therefore,  the  continued  triumph  and  power  of  the 
Republican  Party  was  of  the  first  importance.  The  minority  believed 
that  the  results  achieved  by  the  war  and  the  emancipation,  and  by 
the  subsequent  enfranchisement  of  the  colored  people,  had  carried 
with  it  the  entire  overthrow  of  the  old  South  ;  that  a  new  South 
had  arisen  in  its  place  ;  that  the  old  issues  were  settled,  and  that 
new  issues  had  taken  their  place.  They  desired,  therefore,  that  the 
Republican  Party,  turning  its  back  upon  the  past,  should  take  up 
the  questions  of  temperance,  civil  service  reform,  and  taxation, 
and  devote  itself  to  their  solution.  To  this  party  Mr.  Beecher  be- 
longed, both  by  reason  of  his  charitable  and  hopeful  temperament 
and  by  reason  of  his  profound  convictions.  The  nomination  of  Mr. 
Blaine  for  President  was  received  with  enthusiasm  by  the  first  of 
these  two  parties,  but  with  coldness  by  the  second,  which  deep- 
ened into  strong  opposition  as  the  campaign  proceeded.  Grover 
Cleveland,  a  Democratic  politician  lawyer  of  Buffalo,  had  in  the 
State  election  preceding  carried  New  York  State  by  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority,  not  as  a  Democrat,  but  as  a  reform  candidate  ;  as 
Governor  he  had  fought  a  brief  battle  against  corruption  in  his 
own  State  with  marked  success  ;  and  the  Democrats  nominated 
him  for  President.  Personal  interests,  personal  friendships,  and 
lifelong  associations  attached  Mr.  Beecher  to  the  Republican  Party. 
But  he  believed  that  civil  service  reform  was  the  need  of  the  hour, 
and  that  the  advancement  of  that  reform  depended  on  the  election 
of  Mr.  Cleveland.      When  his  friends  learned  that  he  was  consid- 


CLOSING   YEARS.  601 

ering  the  question  of  speaking  for  the  Democratic  candidate, 
recognizing  the  influence  he  would  exert,  they  besought  him, 
from  prudential  considerations,  if  for  no  other  reasons,  to  abstain 
from  taking  any  part  in  the  campaign.  But  prudential  considera- 
tions never  influenced  Mr.  Beecher  ;  and,  Laving  made  up  his  mind 
that  the  question  of  civil  administration  was  the  real  question  for 
the  country,  and  that  it  would  be  best  promoted  by  the  election 
of  Mr.  Cleveland,  he  threw  himself  into  the  campaign  with  all 
the  ardor  of  his  nature.  Whether  it  is  best  for  a  minister  to  take 
any  part  in  political  strife,  except  in  very  extraordinary  cases,  and 
whether  in  this  instance  Mr.  Beecher's  judgment  failed  him  as  to 
the  part  which  in  the  then  condition  of  parties  the  true  patriot 
should  take,  are  questions  which  there  is  no  occasion  here  to  dis- 
cuss ;  but  now  that  the  heats  of  the  campaign  have  passed,  I  think 
his  severest  critics  and  bitterest  antagonists  concede  the  unselfish 
courage  and  the  disinterested  spirit  which  animated  him  in  his 
course. 

Nor  less  was  this  courage  manifested  by  his  public  advocacy  of 
evolution.  Evolution  had  come  to  be  identified  in  the  public  mind 
with  infidelity.  It  does  undoubtedly  involve  a  recasting  of  the 
philosophic  statements  of  creation,  sin,  revelation,  and  redemp- 
tion, and,  to  many,  such  a  recasting  appears  equivalent  to  an  entire 
abandonment  of  these  truths.  Mr.  Beecher,  convinced  of  the 
truth  of  evolution  as  a  philosophy  of  life,  set  himself  with  charac- 
teristic ardor  to  convince  others  of  it  ;  with  a  vehemence  that  was 
at  times  excessive,  he  attacked  the  old  theological  statements  at 
points  where  they  impinged  upon  the  new  philosophy.  He  pre- 
pared a  special  lecture  on  "  Evolution  and  Revolution,"  which  he 
repeated  at  many  points  in  the  country  ;  and  he  gave  to  his 
own  people  a  series  of  sermons  on  "  Evolution  and  Religion," 
which  have  since  been  published  in  book  form,  and  which  contain 
the  fullest  and  best  embodiment  of  his  views  on  this  subject. 
During  the  delivery  of  these  sermons  the  church  was  crowded, 
neither  heat  nor  storm  having  any  perceptible  influence  in  diminish- 
ing the  audiences.  The  sermons  were  reported  verbatim,  tele- 
graphed to  Chicago,  and  published  in  full  each  Monday  morning 
in  the  Chicago  Tribune. 

It  is  evident  that  whatever  others  may  think  or  appear  to  think, 
Mr.  Beecher  did  not  regard  himself  as  any  less  in  sympathy  with 


602  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

evangelical  Christianity  and  evangelical  churches  than  formerly 
because  he  was  an  evolutionist.  In  the  seventh  and  last  sermon  he 
declared  that  the  world  cannot  do  without  the  Church,  and  that 
evolutionary  theology,  while  it  will  modify  its  externalities,  will 
vivify,  purify,  and  unify  it.  In  his  second  sermon  he  emphatically 
declares  his  faith  in  the  fundamental  tenets  of  what  is  known  as 
evangelical  theology.     We  quote  : 

"  I  believe  in  God.  I  believe  in  immortality.  I  believe  in 
Jesus  Christ  as  the  representation  of  the  divinity  of  God.  I  be- 
lieve in  all  the  essential  truths  that  go  to  make  up  morality  and 
spiritual  religion.  lam  neither  an  intidel,  nor  an  agnostic,  nor  an 
atheist  ;  but  if  I  am  anything,  by  the  grace  of  God  I  am  a  lover 
of  Jesus  Christ,  as  the  manifestation  of  God  under  the  limitations 
of  space  and  matter  ;  and  in  no  part  of  my  life  has  my  ministry 
seemed  to  me  so  solemn,  so  earnest,  so  truthful  as  this  decade 
will  seem,  if  I  shall  succeed  in  uncovering  to  the  faith  of  God's  peo- 
ple the  great  truths  of  the  two  revelations — God's  building  revela- 
tion of  the  material  globe,  and  God's  building  revelation  in  the 
history  of  the  unfolding  of  the  human  mind.  May  God  direct 
me." 

In  the  same  sermon  he  referred  to  the  positions  of  Professor 
Dana,  of  Yale  College  ;  Professor  Asa  Gray,  of  Harvard  ;  Pro- 
fessor Le  Comte,  of  the  University  of  California  ;  Dr.  McCosh, 
of  Princeton,  and  others,  as  substantially  his  own.  In  other 
sermons  he  reiterated  his  faith  in  the  sinfulness  of  the  race,  and 
its  redemption  through  Christ.  His  eloquent  panegyric  on  the 
Bible  in  his  third  sermon  deserves  a  place  among  pulpit  classics 
upon  this  classical  theme.  And  almost  every  discourse  ends,  as  do 
Paul's  Epistles,  with  a  fervid  spiritual  appeal  to  the  consciousness 
of  his  hearers,  and  an  endeavor  to  apply  his  teaching  to  their 
moral  and  spiritual  needs.  The  gist  of  these  sermons  may  be 
thus  epitomized  : 

There  is  a  personal,  conscious,  intelligent  God  ;  He  is  disclosed 
to  humanity,  not  by  an  instant  revelation  of  Himself,  but  by  suc- 
cessive revelations  through  the  experience  of  the  race,  as  a  founda- 
tion for  the  reception  of  such  revelations  as  is  laid  in  its  grow- 
ing moral  and  spiritual  nature.  The  world  is  itself  a  growth  from 
chaotic  beginnings  ;  the  race  a  growth  from  lower  and  rudimentary 
forms — how  low  and  rudimentary  we  do  not  know  ;  the  first  chapter 


CLOSING    YEARS.  603 

of  Genesis  ia  a  poem,  not  a  treatise  in  cosmogony  ;  and  the  drama 
of  Eden  is  a  drama,  a  legend,  a  poetic  parable,  not  a  scientific  ac- 
count of  the  origin  of  man.  The  Bible  is  the  record  of  the  grad- 
ually unfolding  revelation  of  God  to  a  gradually  devclo})cd  race  of 
man  ;  it  is  the  story  of  man's  experiments,  blundeiings,  discov- 
eries, disasters,  and  achievements,  not  an  authoritative  and  infalli- 
ble disclosure  of  truth  ready-made,  and  given  from  the  first  in  its 
final  and  perfected  form.  Man  himself  is  a  composite  cieature, 
animal  at  the  bottom,  spiritual  at  the  top,  and  gradually  being 
lifted  by  divine  processes  from  the  lower  animal  to  the  higher 
spiritual  condition  ;  those  who  cannot  be  lifted,  who  prove  them- 
selves unsusceptible  to  all  divine  elevating  influences,  "  go  down 
steadily  lower  and  lower  until  they  lose  the  susceptibility,  the  pos- 
sibility, of  moral  evolution,  moral  development  ;  let  them  keep 
on,  and  in  the  great  abyss  of  nothingness  there  is  no  groan,  no 
sorrow,  no  pain,  and  no  memory."  Regeneration  is  necessary  to 
spiritual  life  ;  but  regeneration  is  not  a  new  power  conferred  by 
the  irresistible  grace  of  God  on  an  unwilling  or  a  passive  recipient  ; 
it  is  the  lifting  of  the  soul  up  by  the  touch  of  a  higher,  a  divine 
nature,  into  the  conditions  necessary  to  a  divine  life,  into  the  sun- 
light where  alone  the  soul  can  grow.  Design  in  creation  is  not 
disproved  by  evolution  ;  on  the  contrary,  a  grander  design  is  illus- 
trated and  exemplified  ;  the  Church  will  not  be  weakened  by  it, 
but  vivified  and  enlarged. 

The  exposition  of  this  system  was  Mr.  Beecher's  last  contribu- 
tion to  theological  thought  ;  the  story  of  his  death  and  the  won- 
derful tributes  of  a  nation  to  his  life  and  character  will  be  reserved 
for  a  future  chapter. 


CHAPTER  II. 

HIS    LIFE    AS    SKETCHED    BY    HIMSELF LAST    DISCOURSE. 

Oh'  Tuesday,  September  28th,  1886,  upon  the  occasion  of  Mr, 
Beecher's  visit  to  England,  the  Board  of  London  Congregational 
Ministers,  with  their  wives  or  other  lady  friends,  and  a  few  invited 
guests,  entertained  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Beecher  at  a  social  meeting  in 
the  Memorial  Hall.  The  Christian  World  of  September  30th 
said  : 

"  Soon  after  four  o'clock  a  goodly  company  had  assembled  in  the 
library,  where  tea  and  coffee  were  served.  An  hour  having  been 
occupied  in  conversazione  fashion,  an  adjournment  took  place  to 
the  large  hall  above  till  the  tables  were  cleared.  The  company, 
probably  four  hundred  or  upward,  then  re-formed  in  the  library, 
and  the  meeting  was  constituted  by  the  Rev.  John  Nunn,  minister 
of  Haverstock  Hill  Church,  the  year's  chairman  of  the  Board, 
taking  the  president's  seat  and  giving  out  a  hymn,  which  was  sung. 
The  Rev.  Josiah  Viney,  of  Caterham,  next  led  the  meeting  in 
prayer,  and  with  so  much  appropriateness  and  feeling  that  every 
one  present  must  at  once  have  felt  it  to  be  a  hallowed  season." 

After  an  ope  ning  address  by  the  Rev.  John  Nunn,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Allon  read  an  address  of  welcome  to  Mr.  Beecher,  at  the  conclu- 
sion of  which  Mr.  Beecher  made  response  as  follows  : 

MR.     beecher's    RESPONSE. 

The  Re\^  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who,  on  rising,  was  received 
with  prolonged,  acclamation,  said  :  "  My  life  has  been  a  long  and 
public  life  already,  and  the  experiences  of  that  life  in  the  wilder- 
ness, in  populous  cities,  at  home  and  abroad,  have  been  many  and 
critical  and  memorable  ;  but  I  must  say  that  your  presence  to- 
night, your  cordiality,  your  recognition,  and  the  words  into  which 


CLOSING   YEARS.  605 

it  has  been  poured,  constitute  by  all  odds  the  most  memorable 
experience  of  my  whole  life.  (Applause.)  It  is  not  a  matter, 
to-night,  of  vanity  on  my  part.  Not  before  the  judgment-seat 
shall  I  feel  more  solemn  than  I  feel  in  the  presence  of  so  many 
men  consecrated  to  the  work  of  Christ  and  the  salvation  of  men  ; 
and  your  testimony  that,  through  good  report  and  bad  report, 
under  all  pressures  and  difficulties,  on  the  whole  I  have  shown 
to  you  such  Christian  fidelity  and  such  simple  manliness,  that 
testimony  I  shall  leave  as  a  legacy  to  my  children.  (Applause.) 
I  dare  not  think  of  myself  what  you  have  been  kind  enough  to 
express.  I  only  know  this — and  I  say  it  as  in  the  conscious  pres- 
ence of  Christ,  my  Lord  and  my  all — that  by  the  grace  given  to 
me  of  my  God  and  ray  mother  I  have  endeavored  during  my  long 
life  most  disinterestedly  and  most  earnestly  to  do  the  things 
that  I  believed  would  please  Christ  in  the  salvation  of  men.  I 
have  had  no  ambitions,  I  have  sought  no  laurels,  I  have  deliber- 
ately rejected  many  things  that  would  have  been  consonant  to 
my  taste.  It  would  have  been  for  me  a  great  delight  to  be  a 
scholar  ;  I  should  have  relished  exceedingly  to  have  perfected  mv 
thought  in  the  study,  and  to  have  given  it  such  qualities  as  that 
it  should  stand  as  classics  stand.  But  when  the  work  was  pressed 
upon  me,  and  my  relations  to  my  own  country  and  to  mankind  be- 
came urgent,  I  remember,  as  if  it  were  but  yesterday,  when  I  laid 
my  literary  ambition  and  my  scholarly  desires  upon  the  altar  and 
said,  '  If  I  can  do  more  for  my  Master  and  for  men  by  my  style 
of  thinking  and  working,  I  am  willing  to  work  in  a  second-rate 
way  ;  I  am  willing  to  leave  writing  behind  my  back.  I  am  will- 
ing not  to  carve  statues  of  beauty,  but  simply  to  do  the  things  that 
would  please  God  in  the  salvation  of  men. ' 

"  I  have  had  every  experience  almost  that  is  possible  to  men. 
I  have  been  sick  and  I  have  been  well,  I  have  been  liked  and  I 
have  not  been  liked  (laughter) — I  have  been  in  the  wilderness 
among  the  poor  and  the  emigrant,  I  have  'drifted  into  the  cities 
where  the  great  and  refined  are.  I  have  known  what  poverty 
was  and  I  have  known  what  it  was  to  have  almost  enough. 
(Laughter.)  But  these  things  have  all  been  incidental.  And  now 
to  begin  at  the  beginning,  for  this  must  be  biographical  ;  I  dis- 
miss my  modesty  and  I  go  at  myself  now.      (Applause.) 

"  My  mother,  born  in   the  Episcopal   Church  and  a  devout  ad- 


606  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

herent  to  that  form  of  faith  and  government,  married  my  father. 
She  was  a  sensible  woman,  evinced  not  only  by  that  but  by  the 
fact  that  she  united  herself  to  the  Congregational  Church  in  Litch- 
field, Conn. ,  and  she  was  a  woman  of  extraordinary  graces  and 
gifts  ;  a  woman  not  demonstrative,  with  a  profound  philosopliical 
nature  and  of  wonderful  depth  of  affection,  but  with  a  serenity 
that  was  simply  charming.  While  my  father  was  in  the  early  re- 
ligious experience  under  Calvinistic  teaching,  debating  and  swell- 
ing and  floating  here  and  there,  and  tormenting  himself,  she  threw 
the  oil  of  faith  and  trust  on  the  waters  and  they  were  quieted,  for 
she  trusted  in  God. 

"  Now,  when  I  was  born,  I  was  the  fourth,  fifth,  sixth,  or 
seventh  child — somewhere  thereabouts.  (Laughter.)  There  were 
six  sons,  I  know,  in  all,  and  not  one  of  them  escaped  from  the 
pulpit.  My  mother  dedicated  me  to  the  work  of  the  foreign  mis- 
sionary ;  she  laid  her  hands  upon  me,  wept  over  me,  and  set  me 
apart  to  preach  the  Gospel  among  the  heathen,  and  I  have  been 
doing  it  all  my  life  long  (much  laughter),  for  it  so  happens  one 
does  not  need  to  go  far  from  his  own  country  to  find  his  audience 
before  him.  From  her  I  received  my  love  of  the  beautiful,  my 
poetic  temperament,  which  I  beg  you  to  take  notice  is  culpable 
for  a  good  deal  of  that  heresy  to  which  allusion  has  been  made. 
(Laughter.)  From  her,  also,  I  received  simplicity  and  childlike 
faith  in  God.  I  went  through  all  the  colic  and  anguish  of  hyper- 
Calvinism  while  I  was  yet  quite  young.  Happily,  my  constitu- 
tion was  strong.  (Laughter.)  I  regard  the  old  hyper-Calvinistic 
system  as  the  making  of  as  strong  men  as  ever  met  on  the  face  of 
this  earth  ;  but  I  think  it  kills  five  hundred  where  it  makes  one. 
(Laughter. )  This  is  a  meeting  of  perfect  frankness.  ('  Hear, 
hear.')  When  I  was  a  boy  eight  years  old  and  upward  I  knew 
as  much  about  decrees,  foreordination,  election,  reprobation,  as 
you  do  now  ;  I  used  to  be  under  the  murky  atmosphere,  and  I 
said  to  myself,  '  Oh,  if  I  could  only  repent,  then  I  should  have 
a  Saviour. ' 

"  As  years  went  on  and  I  entered  my  collegiate  course  I  re- 
member with  shame  and  mortification  the  experiences  through 
which  I  went  ;  the  pleadings  for  mercy,  the  longings  for  some 
token  of  acceptance,  and  the  prayers  that  became  ritualistic  from 
their  repetition,  that  I  might  have  that  that  was  hanging  over  my 


CLOSING   YEARS.  607 

head  and  waiting  for  me  to  take,  and  I  did  not  know  how — 1  did 
not  know  how.  \Yhen  at  last  it  pleased  God  to  reveal  to  nie  Ilis 
infinite,  universal  love  to  mankind,  and  I  beheld  Him  as  a  helper, 
as  the  soul's  midwife,  as  the  soul's  physician,  and  I  felt  because  I 
was  weak  I  could  come  to  Him  ;  because  I  did  not  know  hjw, 
and  if  I  did  know  I  had  not  the  strength  to  do  the  things  that 
were  right — that  was  the  invitation  that  He  gave  to  me  out  of  ray 
conscious  weakness  and  want.  I  will  not  repeat  the  scene  of  that 
morning  when  light  broke  fairly  on  my  mind  ;  hov?  one  might 
have  thought  that  I  was  a  lunatic  escaped  from  confinement,  how 
I  ran  up  and  down  through  the  primeval  forest  of  Ohio,  shouting, 
'  Glory,  glory  ! '  sometimes  in  loud  tones  and  at  other  times 
whispered  in  an  ecstasy  of  joy  and  surprise  ;  all  the  old  troubles 
gone,  and,  light  breaking  in  on  my  mind,  I  cried,  *  T  have  found 
my  God  ;  I  have  found  my  God  I  ' 

"  From  that  hour  I  consecrated  myself  to  the  work  of  the 
ministry.  I  had  been  studying  theology.  You  would  not  suspect 
it,  but  I  know  a  good  deal  of  theology.  (Much  laughter. )  Well, 
I  was  called  to  work  in  Ohio  and  in  Indiana,  and  very  soon  I 
found  that  my  work  was  very  largely  a  missionary  work,  for  the 
States  were  then  young — it  was  fifty  years  ago — and  they  were  very 
largely  peopled  by  emigrants,  men  that  had  come  without  fortune 
to  make  fortune.  I  went  through  the  woods  and  through  camp- 
meetings  and  over  prairies.  Everywhere  my  vacations  were  all 
missionary  tours,  preaching  Christ  for  the  hope  of  salvation.  I 
am  not  saying  this  to  show  you  how  I  came  to  the  knowledge  of 
Christ,  but  to  show  you  how  I  came  to  the  habit  and  forms  of  my 
ministry.  I  tried  everything  on  to  folks.  I  had  an  active  mind 
and  a  good  deal  of  reading,  and  was  brought  up  in  the  school  of 
dispute  where  were  my  father  and  Dr.  Tyler,  and  Dr.  Taylor  and 
Dr.  Porter,  and  Dr.  Woods  and  other  men  that  have  repented  of 
their  orthodoxy  long  ago  in  heaven.  (Laughter.)  I  mention  this 
to  show  how  it  was  that  I  took  on  the  particular  forms  which 
have  maintained  themselves  measurably  through  my  life. 

"  There  are  a  great  many  of  you  that  think  that  I  do  not  be- 
lieve in  theology.  There  was  a  sort  of  veiled  allusion  to  that  in 
the  address — not  very  veiled,  methinks.  (Laughter.)  My  minis- 
try began  in  the  West,  as  I  have  said.  I  was  fresh  from  the  con- 
troversies of  New  England.     I  went  to  Cincinnati  for  the  study 


/ 


608  HENRY   WARD   REECHER. 

i 
of  theology  with  Dr.  Wilson,  as  stiff  a  man  and  as  orthodox  as 
Calvin  himself,  and  as  pugnacious  as  ten  Calvins  rolled  into  one. 
He  arraigned  my  father  for  heterodoxy  ;  he  had  to  go  through  the 
trial  of  the  Presbytery,  and  the  Synod  of  the  General  Assembly 
kicked  it  all  out.  You  need  not  ask  me  whether  I  was  disgusted 
or  not,  whether  I  saw  all  the  wild  work  of  warring,  pestilent  the- 
ology, and  all  that  strife  with  acquiescence  or  with  sympathy. 
Then  in  connection  with  that,  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  broke  in  two  ;  one  half  was  new  school  and  the 
other  half  old  school.  The  new  school  Prcsbyterianism  in  America 
means  Calvinism  leavened  by  New  England  thought  ;  the  old  school 
means  Calvinism  with  Scotch  and  Irish  thought-leavening,  and  the 
Middle  States  and  the  Western  were  largely  populated  by  the 
schoolmasters  and  the  preachers  that  came  from  Scotland  and 
Ireland.  I  need  not  say  that  they  brought  their  peculiarities  with 
them.      (Laughter.) 

"  Now,  seeing  this  fight,  degenerating  oftentimes  into  the  most 
scandalous  enmities,  I  turned  away  in  absolute  disgust  from  all 
these  things  and  said,  '  Mj^^usiness  shall  be  to  save  men,  and 
to  bring  to  bear  upon  them  those  views  tluit  are  my  comfort,  that 
are  the  bread  of  life  to  me,'  and  I  went  (ut  among  them  almost 
entirely  cut  loose  from  the  ordinary  church  ..iDstitutions  and 
agencies,  knowing  nothing  but  'Christ,  and  Him  crucified, 'the 
Sufferer  for  mankind.  Did  not  the  men  round  me  need  such  a 
Saviour  ?  Was  there  ever  such  a  field  as  I  found  ?  Every  sym- 
pathy of  my  being  was  continually  solicited  for  the  ignorance,  for 
the  rudeness,  for  the  aberrations,  for  the  avarice,  for  the  quarrel- 
someness of  the  men  among  whom  1  was,  and  I  was  trying  every 
form  and  presenting  Christ  as  a  medicine  to  men  ;  and  as  I  went 
on  and  more  and  more  tried  to  preach  Christ,  the  clouds  broke 
away  and  I  began  to  have  a  distinct  system  in  my  own  mind. 
For  I  had  been  early  in  alliance  with  scientific  pursuits.  I  had 
early  been  a  phrenologist,  and  I  am  still — all  that  is  left  of  it  in 
me  ;  and  I  had  followed  all  the  way  up  with  a  profound  convic- 
tion that  God  had  two  revelations  in  this  world,  one  of  the  book 
and  the  other  of  the  rock,  and  I  meant  to  read  them  both — the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New.  And  not  to  shut  out  the  light  I  had 
to  do  this  in  such  a  sense  as  to  be  just  to  myself,  though  I  knew 
it  brought  doubt  and  often  suspicion  upon  me  among  my  brethren  ; 


CLOSING   YEARS.  609 

but  I  had  not  time  to  attend  to  that.  (Laughter.)  When  they 
said  to  me,  '  You  are  not  orthodox,'  I  replied,  '  Very  well,  be 
it  so  ;  I  am  out  on  another  business  ;  I  understand  that  call  that 
has  been  sounding  down  through  two  thousand  years,  and  is  sound- 
ing yet  :  "  Follow  Me,  and  I  will  make  you  fishers  of  men."  '  I 
dedicated  myself  not  to  be  a  fisher  of  ideas,  nor  of  books,  nor  of 
sermons,  but  a  fisher  of  men,  and  in  this  work  I  very  soon  came 
to  the  point  ih  which  I  felt  dissatisfied  with  the  views  of  God  that 
had  been  before  given.  I  felt  dissatisfied  with  that  whole  realm 
of  theology,  which  I  now  call  the  machinery  of  religion,  which 
has  in  it  some  truth,  and  I  would  it  had  more.  (Laughter.)  But 
I  came  to  have  this  feeling  that  it  stood  in  the  way  of  sinful  men. 
I  found  men  in  distress,  in  peril  of  soul,  on  account  of  views  which 
I  did  not  believe  were  true,  or,  if  true,  not  in  any  such  proportion. 
If  you  want  to  know  why  I  have  been  fierce  against  theology,  that 
is  it  ;  because  I  thought  with  Mary,  and  I  said  time  and  again, 
'  They  have  taken  away  my  Lord,  and  I  know  not  where  they 
have  laid  Him.'  It  seemed  to  me  that  men  could  not  believe  in 
such  a  God  as  I  heard  preached  about,  that  men  could  not  believe 
such  a  schedule  of  truth  as  I  had  seen  crystallized  and  promoted 
among  men.  I  do  not  care  the  turn  of  my  hand  about  a  man's 
philosophy  ;  I  do  not  care  about  one  system  or  another  ;  any  sys- 
tem that  will  bring  a  man  from  darkness  to  faith  and  love  I  will 
tolerate  ;  and  any  system  that  lets  down  the  curtam  between  God 
and  men,  whether  it  is  canonical  priest  or  church  service  or  church 
methods,  whether  it  is  the  philosophical  or  the  theological — any- 
thing that  blurs  the  presence  of  God,  anything  that  makes  the 
heavens  black  and  the  heart  hopeless,  I  will  fight  it  to  the  death. 
(Loud  applause.) 

"  Well,  a  little  later  on — this,  perhaps,  will  cover  the  first 
twenty  years  of  my  ministry — before  I  found  the  water  deep 
enough  for  me  to  swim  in,  I  came  insensibly  into  connection  with 
public  questions  ;  I  was  sucked  into  the  political  controversies  and 
the  moral  reformations  of  the  age  ;  and  just  at  that  time  that 
question  was  coming  up  which  involved  every  principle  of  recti- 
tude, of  morality,  of  humanity  and  of  religion.  My  father  was 
too  old  ;  the  controversy  came  on  when  he  was  failing  ;  he  was 
cautious  in  his  way  ;  he  was  afraid  that  his  son  Henry  would  get 
himself  into  diflSculties.  But  I  took  no  counsel  with  men.  When 
37 


610  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

I  came  to  Brooklyn,  somft  dear  men,  who  are  now  at  rest,  said, 
with  the  best  intention,  '  You  have  a  blessed  chance,  and  you  can 
come  to  very  good  influence  if  you  do  not  throw  yourself  away  ;  ' 
and  they  warned  me  not  to  preach  on  slavery  and  on  some  other 
topics  that  at  that  time  were  up  in  the  public  mind.  I  do  not 
know  what  it  is  in  me — whether  it  is  my  father  or  my  mother,  or 
both  of  them — but  the  moment  you  tell  me  that  a  thing  that 
ought  to  be  done  is  unpopular,  I  am  right  there  every  time. 
(Loud  applause.)  I  fed  on  the  privilege  of  making  men  hear 
things,  because  I  was  a  public  speaker.  I  gloried  in  my  gifts,  not 
because  they  brouglit  praise,  but  because  they  brought  the  other 
thing  continually.  But  men  would  come  and  would  hear,  and  I 
rejoiced  in  it,  and,  as  my  Master  knows,  I  laid  all  these  tributes 
and, all  the  victories  that  they  brought  at  the  feet  of  Him  who  is 
the  liberator  of  the  world.  Jesus  knows  that  for  His  sake  I  smote 
with  the  sword  and  with  the  spear,  not  because  I  loved  contro- 
versy, but  because  I  loved  truth  and  humanity  ;  and  because  I  saw 
weak  men  flinch,  and  because  I  saw  base  men  truckle  and  bargain, 
because  I  saw  that  the  cause  of  Christ  was  likely  to  suffer,  I  fought, 
and  1  will  fight  to  the  end.      (Loud  applause.) 

"  With  this  brief  analysis  of  the  lines  of  development,  allow 
me  to  say  a  word  in  regard  more  especially  to  my  theological 
views.  And  first  let  me  say  that  I  think  I  am  as  orthodox  a  man 
as  there  is  in  this  world.  (Laughter.)  "Well,  what  are  the  tests 
of  orthodoxy  ?  Man  universally  is  a  sinner  ;  man  universally 
needs  to  be  born  again  ;  there  is  in  the  nature  of  God  that  power 
and  influence  that  can  convert  a  man  and  redeem  him  from  his 
animal  life  ;  and  it  is  possible  for  man  so  to  bring  to  bear  this 
divine  influence  in  the  ministration  of  the  Gospel  as  that  men  shall 
be  awakened  and  convicted  and  converted  and  built  up  iu  the 
faith  of  ,Tesus  Christ.  There  is  my  orthodoxy.  (Applause.) 
But  how  about  the  Trinity  ?  I  do  not  understand  it,  but  I  accept 
it.  If  anybody  else  understands  it  I  have  not  met  him  yet  ;  but 
it  seems  to  me  that  that  is  the  easiest  way  of  rendering  the  differ- 
ent testimonies  or  words  of  truth  in  the  New  Testament ;  neither 
do  I  see  any  philosophical  objection  to  it  at  all,  and  I  accept  it 
without  questioning.  What  about  original  sin  ?  There  has  been 
so  much  actual  transgression  that  I  have  not  had  time  to  go  back 
on  to  that.      (Much  laughter.)     On  what  grounds  may  a  man  hope  ? 


CLOSING   YEARS.  Gil 

On  the  atonement  of  Christ  ?  Yes,  if  you  want  to  interpose  that 
word,  atonement,  on  that  ground,  unquestionably,  I  am  accu-^- 
tomed  to  say  Christ  saves  men.  But  how  ?  That  is  His  lookout, 
not  mine.  (Applause.)  I  think  that  because  the  nature  of  God 
is  sanative,  God  is  love.  '  If  ye  being  evil  know  how  to  give 
good  gifts  to  your  children,  how  much  more  shall  your  Father 
which  is  in  heaven  give  good  gifts  to  them  which  ask  Him  ?  '  If 
you  choose  to  fix  it  in  this  way,  and  say  that  Christ  saw  it  possible 
to  do  so  and  thus  and  so  and  thus,  and  that  was  the  atonement 
He  made,  and  if  you  take  any  comfort  in  it  I  shall  not  quarrel  with 
you.  But  it  is  enough  for  me  to  know  this,  that  Jesus  Christ, 
God  in  the  flesh,  has  proclaimed,  to  whomsoever  will,  health,  life, 
new  life — '  born  again  ;  '  He  has  offered  these,  and  therefore  I 
no  more  want  to  question  how  He  does  it  than  a  sick  man  ques- 
tions the  doctor  before  he  takes  a  pill.  If  he  says,  '  Doctor, 
what  is  in  it  ? '  the  doctor  says,  '  Take  it  and  you  will  find  out 
what  is  in  it.'  If  men  think  I  am  heterodox  because  I  do  not 
believe  this,  that  and  the  other  explanation  of  the  atonement  of 
Jesus  Christ,  it  is  enough  for  me  to  say  I  believe  in  Christ,  and  I 
believe  Christ  is  atonement.  Now,  if  you  ask  me  whether  I  be- 
lieve in  the  divinity  of  Christ,  I  do  not  believe  in  anything  else. 
Let  a  man  stand  and  look  at  the  sun,  then  ask  him  what  he  sees 
besides.  Nothing  ;  it  blinds  him.  There  is  nothing  else  to  me 
when  I  am  thinking  of  God  ;  it  fills  the  whole  sphere,  the  heaven 
of  heavens  and  the  whole  earth  and  all  time  ;  and  out  of  that 
boundlessness  of  love  and  that  infiniteness  of  divine  faculty  and 
capacity  it  seems  to  me  that  He  is,  to  my  thought,  what  summer 
is  when  I  see  it  marching  on  after  the  cold  winter  is  over.  I 
know  where  the  light  comes  from  and  where  the  warmth  comes 
from.  When  I  see  anything  going  on  for  good  and  for  the  stay- 
ing of  evil  I  know  it  is  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  and  the  name  to 
me  is  Jesus — every  time  Jesus.  For  Him  I  live,  for  Him  I  love, 
for  Him  I  labor,  for  Him  I  rejoice  in  my  remaining  strength,  for 
Him  I  thank  God  that  I  have  yet  so  much  in  me  that  can  spend 
and  be  spent  for  the  only  one  great  cause  which  should  lift  itself 
above  every  other  cause  in  this  whole  world.  (Applause.)  To 
preach  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  have  Christ  so  melted  and 
dissolved  in  you  that  when  you  preach  your  own  self  you  preach 
Him  as  Paul   did,  to  have  every  part  of  you  living  and  luminous 


G12  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

with  Christ,  and  then  to  make  use  of  everything  that  is  in  you, 
your  analogical  reasoning,  your  logical  reasoning,  your  imagina- 
tion, your  mirthfulness,  your  humor,  your  indignation,  your 
wrath,  to  take  everything  that  is  in  you  all  steeped  in  Jesus 
Christ,  and  to  throw  yourself  with  all  your  power  upon  a  congre- 
gation— that  has  been  my  theory  of  preaching  the  Gospel.  A 
good  many  folks  have  laughed  at  the  idea  of  my  being  a  fit  preacher 
because  I  laughed,  and  because  I  made  somebody  else  laugh.  I 
never  went  out  of  my  way  to  do  it  in  my  life  ;  but  if  some  sudden 
turn  of  a  sentence,  like  the  crack  of  a  whip,  sets  men  off,  I  do 
not  think  any  worse  of  it  for  that — not  a  bit.  1  have  felt  that 
man  should  consecrate  every  gift  that  he  has  got  in  him  that  has 
any  relation  to  the  persuasion  of  men,  and  to  the  melting  of  men 
— that  he  should  put  them  all  on  the  altar,  kindle  them  all,  and 
let  them  burn  for  Christ's  sake.  (Applause. )  I  have  never  sought 
singularity,  and  I  have  never  avoided  singularity.  When  they 
wanted  some  other  sort  of  teaching  I  have  always  said,  '  Get  it. 
If  you  want  my  kind,  here  I  am  ready  to  serve  you  ;  if  you  do 
not,  serve  yourself  better. ' 

"  Now  there  is  one  more  thing  that  I  want  to  say  something 
about,  aside  from  these  central  influential  fountain  doctrines — that 
is,  church  economy,  ordination  and  ordinance.  I  regard  it  as  true 
that  there  is  laid  down  in  the  New  Testament  no  form  of  church 
government  whatever  nor  of  church  ordinance — none.  I  hold 
that  in  the  earliest  age,  while  the  apostles  were  alive,  they  sub- 
stantially conformed  ;  they  borrowed  and  brought  into  service  the 
synagogical  worship  and  used  that  ;  the  idea  of  another  church 
had  not  come  into  their  minds.  You  recollect  that  when  Paul 
went  to  Jerusalem,  after  he  had  been  preaching  for  twenty  years, 
James  took  him  aside  and  said,  '  What  is  this  we  hear  ?  The 
brethren  hear  that  you  have  abandoned  Moses  and  that  you  do  not 
believe  in  hira.  I  will  tell  you  what  to  do,'  says  James  the  Ven- 
erable, '  there  are  going  to  be  some  men  clear  themselves  of  their 
views  in  the  Assembly  to-day,  do  you  go  up  and  clear  yourself, 
that  the  brethren  may  know  that  these  things  that  they  have  heard 
are  not  true. '  Paul  had  been  preaching  for  twenty  years  that 
Christ  was  the  only  hope  and  foundation,  and  that  Moses  was  a 
mere  shadow,  and  a  forerunner  and  preparation  for  Christ.  He 
went  into  the  temple  ;   but  do   you  suppose  he  had   a  church  cate- 


CLOSING   YEARS.  613 

chism  and  a!l  his  foundations  laid  ?  He  would  have  lied  if  he  had 
spoken  in  that  way  at  that  time.  Paul  did  not  see  the  outlines  of 
the  church,  they  grew,  they  developed  out  of  the  nature  of  things. 
And  so  I  say  in  regard  to  all  church  worship,  that  is  the  best 
form  of  church  economy  that  in  the  long  run  helps  men  to  be  the 
best  Christians.  (Applause.)  In  regard  to  ordinance  I  stand 
very  nearly  where  the  Quakers  do,  except  this  :  they  think  that 
because  they  are  not  divinely  commanded  they  are  not  necessary. 
I  think  they  are  most  useful.  Common  schools  are  not  divinely 
ordered  ;  Sunday-schools  are  not  divinely  ordered  ;  but  would 
you  dispense  with  them  ?  Is  there  no  law  and  reason  except  that 
of  the  letter  ?  Whatever  thing  is  found  when  applied  to  human 
nature  to  do  good,  that  is  God's  ordinance.  (Applause.)  If 
there  are  any  men  that  worship  God  through  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church — and  there  are — I  say  this  in  regard  to  them,  '  I  cannot, 
but  you  can  ;  God  bless  you  ! '  In  that  great  venerable  Church 
there  is  Gospel  enough  to  save  any  man,  no  man  need  perish  for 
want  of  light  and  truth  in  that  system  ;  and  yet  what  an  economy 
it  is,  what  an  organization,  what  burdens,  and  how  many  lurking 
mischiefs  that  temptation  will  bring  out  !  I  could  never  be  a 
Roman  Catholic,  but  1  could  be  a  Christian  in  a  Roman  Catholic 
church  ;  I  could  serve  God  there.  I  believe  in  the  Episcopacy  — 
for  those  that  want  it.  (Laughter.)  Let  my  tongue  forget  its 
cunning  if  I  ever  speak  a  word  adverse  to  that  Church  that  brooded 
my  mother,  and  now  broods  some  of  the  nearest  blood  kindred 
I  have  on  earth.  It  is  a  man's  own  fault  if  he  do  not  find  salva- 
tion in  the  teachings  and  worship  of  the  great  Episcopal  body  of 
the  world.  Well,  I  can  find  no  charm  in  the  Presbyterian  gov- 
ernment. I  was  for  ten  years  a  member  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  for  I  swore  to  the  Confession  of  Faith  ;  but  at  that  time 
my  beard  had  not  grown.  (Laughter.)  The  rest  of  the  Book  of 
Worship  has  great  wisdom  in  it,  and  rather  than  not  have  any 
brotherhood,  I  would  be  a  Presbyterian  again  if  they  would  nut 
oblige  me  to  swear  to  the  Confession  of  Faith.  On  the  other 
hand,  my  birthright  is  in  the  Congregational  Church.  I  was  born 
in  it,  it  exactly  agreed  with  my  temperament  and  with  my  ideas  ; 
and  it  does  yet,  for  although  it  is  in  many  respects  slow  moulded, 
although  in  many  respects  it  has  not  the  fascinations  in  its  worship 
that  belong  to  the  high  ecclesiastical  organizations,  though  it  makes 


614  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

less  for  the  eye  and  less  for  the  ear,  and  more  for  the  reason  and 
the  emotions,  though  it  has,  therefore,  slender  advantages,  it  has 
this  :  that  it  does  not  take  men  because  they  are  weak  and  crutch 
them  up  upon  its  worship,  and  then  just  leave  them  as  weak  after 
foity  years  as  they  were  when  it  found  them.  A  part  of  its  veiy 
idea  is  so  to  meet  the  weakness  o^  men  as  that  they  shall  grow 
stronger  ;  to  preach  the  truth  and  then  wait  till  they  are  able  to 
seize  that  truth  and  live  by  it.  It  works  slowly,  but  I  tell  you 
that  when  it  has  finished  its  work  it  makes  men  in  the  community  ; 
and  I  speak  both  of  the  Congregationalists  that  are  called  Baptists 
and  those  thcit  are  called  Congregationalists  ;  they  are  one  and  the 
same  and  ought  to  be  hand  in  hand  with  each  other,  in  perfect 
sympathy.  Under  my  platform  in  Brooklyn  I  have  a  baptistery, 
and  if  anybody's  son  or  daughter,  brought  up  in  Baptist  ideas, 
wants  to  be  immersed  you  won't  catch  me  reasoning  with  them  ; 
1  baptize  them.  So  it  is  that  I  immerse,  I  sprinkle,  and  I  have 
in  some  instances  poured,  and  I  never  saw  there  was  any  differ- 
ence in  the  Christianity  that  was  made.  (Laughter.)  They 
have  all,  for  that  matter,  come  out  so  that  I  should  not  know 
which  was  immersed  or  which  was  sprinkled.  I  believe  there 
ought  to  be  more  unity  among  Congregationalists  of  every  kind. 
What  then  ?  Would  you  merge  our  conscientious  views  of  im- 
mersion ?  No,  I  would  not  merge  them.  Why  cannot  you  im- 
merse and  then  let  it  alone  ?  Why  cannot  you  let  us  sprinkle  and 
let  us  alone  ?  The  unity  of  Christians  does  not  depend  upon  simi- 
larity of  ordinance  or  methods  of  worship.  It  is  a  heart  busi- 
ness. I  do  not  believe  the  Millennium  will  see  one  sect,  one  de- 
nomination, any  more  than  the  perfection  of  civilization  will  sec 
only  one  great  phalanstery,  one  family.  The  man  on  this  side  of 
the  street  keeps  house  in  one  way  and  the  man  over  on  the  other 
side  keeps  house  in  another.  They  do  not  quarrel  ;  each  lets  the 
other  alone.  So  I  hold  about  churches.  The  unity  of  the  Church 
is  to  be  the  unity  of  the  hearts  of  men — spiritual  unity  in  the  love 
of  Christ  and  in  the  love  of  each  other.  Do  not,  then,  meddle 
with  the  details  of  the  way  in  which  different  persons  choose  to 
conduct  their  service.  Let  them  alone  ;  behave  at  least  as  decently 
in  the  Church  of  Christ  as  you  would  do  in  your  neighborhood 
and  in  each  other's  families.  I  do  not  know  why  they  should 
not  concurrently  work  in  all  the  great  causes  of  God  among  man- 


CLOSING   YEARS.  615 

kind.  I  am  not,  therefore,  to  teach  Congregationalism,  I  am  not 
to  teach  the  Baptist  doctrine,  I  am  not  to  teach  Presbyterianism  ; 
I  am  to  preach  '  Oh  ye  that  are  lost  by  reason  of  your  sins,  Je- 
sus Christ  has  found  a  ransom  for  you  ;  come,  come,  and  ye  shall 
live.'  That  is  my  message,  and  in  that  I  have  enthusiasm.  It 
is  not  to  build  up  one  church,  or  another  church,  or  to  cry 
down  one  church  or  ano'her.  Brethren,  we  have  been  trying  con- 
science for  a  great  while  ;  what  have  we  got  by  it  ?  About  one 
hundred  and  fifty  denominations.  There  is  nothing  so  unmanage- 
able as  a  conceited  conscience.  (Laughter.)  Now,  suj^pose  we 
should  try  another  thing  ;  suppose  we  should  try  love  a  little 
while  ;  suppose  we  should  try  sympathy,  trust,  fellowship, 
brotherhood,  without  inquisitorial  power  ;  suppose  we  should  let 
men's  theologies  take  care  of  themselves,  and  bring  this  test  to 
be?'^  upon  them — what  is  the  fruit  of  their  personal  living,  and 
what  ib  the  fruit  of  their  personal  teaching  ?  '  By  their  fruits 
shall  ye  know  them  '  did  not  exhaust  itself  in  personal  thought 
alone.  It  is  a  good  test  for  denominationalism  ;  and  whenever  I 
find  a  denomination  that  puts  emphasis  upon  holiness,  where  there 
is  no  envy,  nor  detraction,  nor  backbiting,  nor  suspicion,  nor  hold- 
ing each  man  to  philosophical  schedules,  when  I  find  a  denomina- 
tion in  which  they  are  full  of  love  and  gentleness  and  kindness,  I 
am  going  to  join  that  denomination.  But  I  do  not  expect  to 
change  for  some  time.  (Much  laughter.)  God  forbid  that  I 
should  set  myself  forth  for  that  which  I  am  not — the  founder  of  a 
sect.  I  think  anybody  would  find  a  good  deal  of  trouble  to  get 
together  enough  of  definite  material  that  is  consecutive  and  logical 
to  make  a  sect  out  of  my  sermons.  That  is  not  what  I  have  been 
after  ;  it  is  not  what  I  am  going  to  try  for  to  the  end  of  my  life. 
My  work  before  me  is  just  what  my  work  has  been  hitherto — the 
preaching  of  such  aspects  and  attributes  of  God  as  shall  win  men 
to  love  and  to  trust  and  to  obedience. 

"  My  life  is  for  the  most  part  spent.  I  am  warned  every 
year,  not  by  any  apparent  decadence  of  health,  but  by  counting  ; 
I  know  that  it  cannot  be  forme  to  be  active  for  many  more  years  ; 
but  so  long  as  life  remains  and  strength,  so  long  as  men  want  my 
ministration,  I  shall  minister  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
to  the  wants  and  the  souls  of  my  fellow-men.  And  as  my  years 
grow  more  I  want  to  bear  a  testimony.     I  suppose   I  have  had  as 


616  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

many  opportunities  as  any  man  here,  or  any  living  man,  of  wliat 
are  called  honors  and  influence  and  wealth.  The  doors  have  been 
opened,  the  golden  doors,  for  years.  I  want  to  bear  witness  that 
the  humblest  labor  which  a  minister  of  God  can  do  for  a  soul  for 
Christ's  sake  is  grander  and  nobler  than  all  learning,  than  all  in- 
fluence and  power,  than  all  riches.  And  knowing  so  much  as  I  do 
of  society,  I  have  this  declaration  to  make — that  if  I  were  called 
to  live  my  life  over  again,  and  I  were  to  have  a  chance  of  the  vo- 
cations which  men  seek,  I  would  again  choose,  and  with  an  im- 
petus arising  from  the  experience  of  this  long  life,  the  ministry  of 
the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  for  honor,  for  cleanliness,  for  work 
that  never  ends,  having  the  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is,  as 
well  as  of  that  which  is  to  come — I  would  choose  the  preaching  of 
the  Gospel — to  them  that  perish,  foolishness,  to  them  that  believe 
and  accept  it,  life  everlasting.  Brethren,  I  want  to  pray  with  you  ; 
will  you  let  me  join  with  you  in  prayer  ? 

THE    PRAYER. 

"  Dear  Lord,  Thou  hast  been  very  gracious  to  us,  and  through 
many  years  Thou  hast  brought  us  at  last  to  these  later  days.  Thou 
hast  brought  us  to-day  with  these,  Thy  beloved  servants,  to  speak 
of  the  things  that  pertain  to  Thee  and  Thy  kingdom.  We 
thank  Thee  for  their  good  and  kind  thoughts  of  us  ;  we  thank 
Thee  for  their  confidence  and  their  trust.  But,  O  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  what  are  we  compared  with  Thee  ?  Thy  name  is  the  one 
name,  Thy  service  is  the  one  service.  0  Spirit  of  Love,  fill  us 
with  Thine  own  presence  ;  forgive  our  weakness  ;  forgive  our  liv^es, 
that  have  been  so  imperfect  that  we  have  not  known  how  to  preach 
as  well  as  we  should  ;  forgive  us,  that  we  have  cultivated  the  deeper 
emotions  of  the  soul  so  little  or  so  imperfectly  as  that  they  do 
not  come  forth  as  the  very  sound  of  the  Gospel  itself.  But  Thou 
hast  forgiven  it  again  and  art  always  forgiving.  We  are  poor,  we 
are  sinful,  we  are  staggering  under  imperfections  ;  we  know  that 
ourselves,  but  every  day  we  lay  our  head  upon  Thy  bosom.  O 
Jesus,  there  is  nothing  but  Thee,  Thou  art  our  hope,  our  love. 
Thy  patience  is  the  author  of  all  our  patience.  Thy  power  is  the 
author  of  all  our  power,  and  now  to-day  we  bring  all  that  is  good 
in  us   and   say,  '  Not  unto  us,  not  unto   us,  but  unto  Thy  name.' 


CLOSING  YEARS.  617 

Dear  Lord,  pour  Thyself  out  upon  Thy  servants  here,  and  upon 
Thy  handmaidens,  and  grant  that  the  homes  of  these  Thy  servants 
may  be  as  the  very  temples  of  God.  Purge  away  all  their  ambi- 
tion if  this  be  their  weakness  ;  purge  away  all  their  combativeness 
if  this  has  been  the  thing  with  which  they  have  striven.  Envy- 
ings  and  jealousies — O  Lord,  we  would  not  have  Thee  served  by 
such  imperfect  things.  Give  to  Thy  servants  something  of  the 
clarity  of  vision,  something  of  the  purity  and  sweetness  of  Thine 
own  nature,  and  may  they  feel  more  and  more  that  it  is  an  honor 
to  be  permitted  to  preach  Christ  at  all.  And  if  there  are  any  that 
are  in  trials,  any  that  are  pinched  in  means,  if  there  be  any  that 
feel  their  feebleness,  that  they  are  overshadowed  by  men  round 
about  them,  0  Lord,  give  them  the  heroic  spirit  that  they  may 
be  willing  to  bear  contumely,  that  they  may  be  able  to  say  with 
Thy  servant  of  old,  '  I  rejoice  in  my  necessities.'  Give  to  them 
a  nearer  view  of  heaven.  How  soon  our  life  flies  away  !  How 
near  we  are  to  the  great  land  !  Our  fathers  are  there,  our  mothers, 
our  children  are  there  ;  but  Thou  chiefly,  Jesus.  We  are  coming, 
and  are  giad  as  the  years  go  by.  We  would  not  die,  and  yet  we 
are  in  a  strait  often  betwixt  two,  having  a  desire  to  depart  and  be 
with  Jesus,  though  it  be,  perhaps,  needful  for  Thy  work  and  Thy 
cause  that  we  abide  yet  longer.  Now  let  Thy  Spirit  be  poured  in 
pentecostal  measure  upon  Thy  dear  servants.  Cleanse  them  from 
their  sins  ;  purify  them  inwardly  and  outwardly.  Give  them 
great  fruit  of  their  labor.  May  they  never  be  discouraged,  and 
may  they  be  a  voice  everywhere  saying  to  men,  *  This  is  the  way, 
walk  ye  in  it,'  and  may  they  walk  in  it  themselves.  Now  to  the 
God  of  our  father,  our  mother,  and  the  God  of  our  little  children, 
O  Thou  God  that  art  our  God,  we  praise  Thee,  we  love  Thee,  we 
long  for  Thee.  When  shall  we  appear  in  Zion  before  God  ? 
When  we  come,  then  we  will  cry  with  all  Thy  servants,  '  Glory  be 
to  Him  who  shed  His  blood  for  us,  and  by  whom  we  have  been 
cleansed.'  And  forever  and  forever  we  will  praise  the  Father,  the 
Son  and  the  Spirit.     Amen." 

THE     LAST     DISCOURSE. 

The  following  is  a  verbatim  report  of  the  last  sermon  preached 
in  Plymouth  Church  by  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  It  was  delivered 
on  Sunday  evening,  February  27th,  and  the  report  was  furnished 


G18  HENRY   WARD    BEECHER. 

by  T.  J,    Ellinwood,  the   lamented   pastor's   official   stenographer. 
The  text  was  : 

"  I  am  resolved  what  to  do." — Luke  16  :  4. 

I  read  in  your  hearing  this  narrative,  this  parable  of  our  Lord. 
The  unjust  steward  had  been  accused,  and  rightfully,  of  betraying 
his  trust  and  wasting  that  permitted  to  him.  His  master  called 
him  to  an  account,  and  he  was  satisfied  that  the  end  had  come. 
And  he  communed  wuth  himself,  and,  as  the  result  of  the  looking 
over  all  the  circumstances  he  said,  "  I  am  resolved  what  to  do." 
What  he  resolved  to  do  was  not  very  honest,  but  it  was  very 
shrewd.  He  resolved  to  make  friends  of  all  the  creditors  and  all 
the  debtors  to  his  lord — call  them  up  and  settle  with  them  in  such 
a  way  as  to  the  law  that  no  obligations  should  accrue  to  him. 
And,  although  he  and  they  cheated  the  master,  he  made  his  own. 
And  the  master  pressed  him — not  Jesus,  but  the  man  that  owned 
the  property.  He  said  to  himself,  "  Well,  that  is  shrewd,  that  is 
cunning,  that  is  wise."  x\nd  the  comment  on  it  is,  the  children 
of  this  world  are  always  wiser  than  the  children  of  light.  That  is 
to  say,  that  men  that  are  acting  for  reasons  are  very  much  wiser 
than  men  attempting  to  act  from  highest  moral  conditions.  But 
that  I  have  selected  is  simply  this  :  "  I  am  resolved  what  to  do." 
What,  then,  is  the  nature  of  the  resolution  ?  What  is  the  scope 
of  it,  the  potency  and  the  drawbacks  ?  A  short  consideration  of 
these  questions  may  throw  light  upon  the  path  of  many  of  us. 
Now,  our  good  friends,  making  up  the  mind  is  the  equivalent  ;  it 
is  forming  a  purpose.  When  a  man  resolves  he  means,  or  should 
mean,  to  do  something,  and  all  resolutions  carry,  or  should  carry, 
not  simply  the  end  sought,  but  also  the  inevitable  and  necessary 
means  by  which  the  end  is  sought.  I  am  resolved  to  cross  that 
river  by  the  bridge,  by  the  boat  or  by  swimming.  But  to  stand 
on  one  side  and  resolve  to  be  on  the  other  without  any  intermedi- 
ate means  of  doing  it  would  be  folly  indeed.  I  am  resolved  to  go 
early  to  market.  All  the  intermediate  and  implied  steps  of  that 
resolution  that  could  be  carried  out  are  included  within  the  resolu- 
tion itself.  A  resolution  is  a  purpose  ;  and,  in  so  far  as  simple 
things  Lincompounded,  uncomplex,  are  concerned,  a  resolution  may 
be  executed  immediately  without  loss  of  time.  Indeed,  the  great- 
est number   of  resolutions   are   those   in  which   the  stroke  of  the 


CLOSING    YEARS.  619 

hammer  and  the  explosion  of  the  gun  are  almost  without  any  ap- 
preciable lapse  of  time.  1  am  resolved  what  to  do.  Unconscious 
reswlution.  A  grate  fire,  and  the  man  needs  logs  about.  It's  the 
call  of  mind  to  sttp  to  the  door  and  see  a  stranger  or  a  friend. 
And  he  resolves  to  do  it  ;  although  resolution  is  latent  in  such  a 
sense,  by  repetition,  in  making  up  his  mind  in  regard  to  a  gieat 
many  simple  impressions,  the  action  of  the  brain  has  become  so 
common  that  the  time  flows  without  any  appreciable  appearance. 
One  goes  in  a  crowd.  A  man  would  strike  him.  His  defence  is 
not  the  resolution  of  reflection,  and  yet  it  was  in  him  as  the  result 
of  experience  and  practice.  And  if  it  be  a  shadow  it's  just  the 
same,  for  the  shadow  seems  like  a  substance  before  him.  And  he 
poses  himself  in  a  ludicrous  attitude,  and  he  goes  on.  But  the 
connection  of  the  mind — the  unconscious  separation  is  there. 
And  it  all  amounts  to  this,  that  a  man  resolves  and  executes  at  the 
same  moment,  whether  he  shall  or  shall  not  answer.  And  yet 
the  train  goes  on  within  liim,  and  he  reflects  :  And  a  call  has  come, 
help  !  he  answers  ;  before  the  echo  dies  he's  on  his  feet  and  he's 
away.  But  these  are  very  simple  things.  They  are  from  the 
primary  forms  which  afterward  become  more  compact,  running 
through  longer  periods  of  time,  employing  a  great  many  interme- 
diate steps. 

For  a  man  will  resolve  that  he  will  go  to  bed,  it  don't  take 
long  there.  To  resolve  that  to-morrow  morning  he  will  go  out 
and  attend  market,  but  to-morrow  morning  is  dark  and  stormy, 
and  the  resolution  would  not  come  so  strong  when  he  wakes  up 
as  when  he  went  to  bed.  There  are  a  good  many  considerations 
that  have  come  in.  Some  friend  is  there,  and  then  the  time  is  too 
late  to  go  and  come  again.  So  he  puts  it  off  to  the  next  morn- 
ing, so  that  between  the  resolution  and  the  act  one  takes  hold  upon 
the  other.  There  is  a  delay  in  intermediate  history.  As  you 
grow  in  life  and  in  society  it  has  become  more  complex.  Civili- 
zation has  grown  in  complexity.  So  the  things  that  you  will  do 
or  should  do  are  in  danger.  A  resolution  to  do  ever  so  much — 
it  is  something  difiicult  from  the  first  resolve.  Resolution  means, 
then,  a  purpose,  a  will  itself.  And  it  includes  in  it  all  the  inter- 
mediate and  indispensable  intermediate  steps.  Some  resolutions 
execute  themselves  immediately,  some  with  some  delay,  some  with 
long  delay,  some  with  many  subordinate  resolutions  that  carry  out 


G20  HENRY   WARD   REECHER. 

^  the  primary  one,  and  a  man  may  resolve  at  a  critical  moment  that 
which  will  determine  the  whole  career  of  his  life  ;  yea,  and  deter- 
mine in  any  one  single  final  moment  that  which  will  take  the  whole 
of  his  life  to  carry  into  effect. 

When  my  father  was  yet  a  lad  (he  was  brought  up  substantially 
by  an  uncle)  he  had  in  him  all  that  was  necessary  to  make  him 
what  he  was  in  his  professional  life,  but  he  didn't  know  it.  He 
was  careless,  he  was  heedless,  he  was  very  good  externally,  and  so 
Uncle  Otbenton,  going  out  one  morning,  found  that  he  was  out 
late  with  the  horse  the  night  before  visiting  some  young  com- 
panion. The  bridle  was  thrown  there  on  the  barn  floor,  and  the 
horse  turned  in  without  a  halter.  He  said,  "Oh,  well,  Lyman 
will  never  make  a  farmer  ;"  and  so,  talking  in  the  orchard  with 
him  one  day,  he  says,  "  Lyman,  how  would  you  like  to  go  to  col- 
lege ?"  No  answer.  They  went  on  working  all  day.  The  next 
day  about  the  same  hour,  as  they  worked  together  in  the  orchard, 
Lyman  said,  "  I  should  like  to  go,  sir."  (Applause.)  That  set- 
tled it.  And  in  that  liking  to  go  there  was  a  purpose  that  shaped 
differently  his  whole  life.  It  never  gave  out ;  it  branched  in  every 
direction,  bore  fruit,  and  finally  made  him  what  he  was.  That 
was  the  starting-point.  He  made  a  tolerably  good  minister  and  a 
tolerably  good  father.  (Applause.)  So,  then,  a  man  may  form 
a  resolution  at  that  period,  but  yet  with  infinite  consequences  in 
its  development.  It  may  include  in  itself  a  longer  process.  It 
may  include  the  actual  scope  of  a  man's  life,  and  it  is  upon  that 
subordinate  resolution  will  be  very  successful  to  carry  out  the 
great  primary  resolution  which  a  man  makes  ;  that  is,  if  a  man  is 
to  be  a  lawyer,  he  is  not  going  to  be  a  blacksmith,  nor  a  sailor, 
nor  a  soldier,  so  that  there  is  the  resolution  of  expunction.  It 
turns  him  away  from  those  things  inconsistent  with  the  first  ele- 
ment. If  he  is  to  be  a  lawyer  there  must  be  the  kind  of  diction, 
and  the  professional  diction,  and  all  the  additions  which  are  pre- 
requisite of  pressing  him  to  the  great  point  of  beginning  the  prac- 
tice. If  these  are  wrapped  up  in  the  first  determination  I  will  be 
a  lawyer,  I  have  determined. don't  make  him  one.  It  starts  him 
along  the  train  of  evidences  that  are  necessary  to  make  him  a 
lawyer.  A  young  man  may  stand  on  the  threshold  of  life.  He 
may  resolve  that  he  will  see  the  world  ;  and  the  man  that  means 
to  see  everything  in  the  world  will  probably  see  a  good  deal  under 


CLOSING   YEARS.  621 

the  world  by  and  by  he  won't  care  about  seeing,  A  man  may  re- 
solve, on  the  other  hand,  "  I  believe  in  honesty."  It  is  the  best 
principle.  Bat  it  is  better  than  nothing  to  say  it  is  the  best  policy. 
All  good  policy  is  principle.  All  good  principle  is  policy.  A 
man  may  say,  I  am  determined  to  be  an  honest,  upright  man. 
That  at  once  separates  between  men.  He  won't  associate  with 
certain  men  ;  he  will  associate  with  certain  athers.  He  won't 
follow  certain  things — callings.  The  resolutions  of  life  develop 
between  one  and  another.  Resolution  is  a  great  thing — a  great 
thing.  Now,  there  are  a  great  many  people  that  do  not  seem  to 
form  a  resolution.  They  are  reckless  ;  all  their  thoughts  run 
through  them  and  are  wasted.  There  are  some  men  who  are  like 
a  well.  They  hold  what  they  have  got.  And  there  are  a  great 
many  whose  thoughts  are  like  this  ;  that  are  going  everywhere  and 
don't  know  that  they  are  going  anywhere,  and  are  expecting.  Then 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  difference  in  the  power  of  men  to  form 
resolutions.  Some  men  swing  under  a  sterling,  strong  purpose — 
when  once  they  resolve  they  never  flinch.  They  never  know  any 
hour  of  backsliding.  They  make  less  account  at  one  time  than 
another.  They  never  turn  back  once  ;  having  put  their  hand  to 
the  plough  they  never  turn  back  again.  Others  forget  it.  They 
are  not  stiff  enough  to  stand  against  the  wind  that  shall  come 
against  them.  Quality  of  resolutions  which  men  make  are  of  very 
great  importance.  And  when  a  man  has  no  sufficient  support  in 
his  own  will,  he  is  the  man  that  needs  to  associate  himself  with 
those  that  are  a  support  to  him.  Even  the  very  woman,  when 
the  wind  blows  so  that  she  can't  make  headway  against  it,  sup- 
ports herself  by  a  fence  that  is  safe,  knowing  that  will  hold  her 
until  the  lull.  And  as  it  is  in  the  body,  so  it  is  in  regard  to  this. 
There  are  some  persons,  left  to  themselves,  wavering  ;  there  are 
sometimes  very  good  reasons.  Sometimes  the  purpose  was  formed 
in  a  moment  of  excitement.  To-day  a  man  may  be  susceptible  of 
one  class  of  effects  that  are  being  produced,  and  then  form  resolu- 
tions, but  immediately  some  others  come  in  between  him  and  it. 

And  he  is  just  as  susceptible  of  that,  and  the  consequent  state 
of  mind  alters  the  first.  And  there  are  many  people,  women,  of 
that  fickleness  .ind  facial  changeableness.  To-day  a  man  is  under 
the  necessity  of  standing  to  his  purpose  under  that  influence  of 
things,  but  by  and  by  outbreaks  or  politics  bring  up  to  his  mind 


G22  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

certain  facts,  and  all  his  mode  is  changed,  and  those  early  agree- 
able senses  of  taste  are  no  longer  turned  upon  him  under  abortion. 
He  has  such  consular  ailments  they  arc  almost  persuaded  to  be 
Christian  and  they  fill  up.  But  going  home  among  merry  com- 
pany and  the  defiling  business  incidents  following  upon  them. 

We  are  like  the  snow  at  this  time  of  the  year,  falls  one  day  and 
disappears  the  next.  So  that  there  is  this  changeableness  that  is 
in  men.  They  have  felt  the  degrees  of  power  come  from  the  na- 
ture of  the  mind.  There  is,  however,  this  idea  not  to  be  neglected 
— the  distinction  between  a  man's  willing  and  his  wishing.  A 
great  many  people  think  that  a  wish  is  a  resolution,  but  it's  gone 
into  proverb  that  "  if  wishes  were  horses,  then  beggars  might 
ride."  A  man  wishes  he  was  rich  ;  but  he's  too  lazy,  he  never 
will  be.  A  man  wishes  he  knew  more  ;  probably  he  never  will. 
He's  lazy.  A  man  wishes  he  could  have  influence  in  the  circles  in 
which  society  moves,  but  he  stops.  He  will  never  have  wisdom 
and  patience  to  do  it.  And  so  men  stand  over  against  the  great 
objects  in  life.  Men  should  be  respected,  but  they  are  not  re- 
spected.    They  wish  for  that  which  will  insure. 

That  would  be  a  purpose.  They  wish  the  thing  without  taking 
the  intermediate  step.  So  men  are  fools  all  over  the  world. 
Wishing,  wishing,  wishing.  They  must  be  fools  when  they  be- 
lieve that  wishing  is  some  sort  of  resolution  toward  competency. 
When  men  came  to  Him  and  said,  "  Lord,  we  will  follow  Thee 
whithersoever  Thou  goest,"  He  said,  "  You  don't  know  that  I  am 
destined  to  suffer  poverty,  persecution,  death.  You  think  I  am 
going  out  a  royal  person,  and  that  you  will  have  pleasures  of  honor 
and  of  gold."  But  suffer  me  first — there  is  a  demi -devil.  I  would 
be  a  Christian,  if — ah,  that  settles  it  !  I  want  to  be  a  Christian, 
but — yes,  that  settles  it  again.  And  so  He  was  surrounded  by 
hundreds  of  persons  wishing,  wishing,  wishing,  with  various  de- 
grees of  excitability  in  them,  and  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
them.  "  Let  him  take  up  his  cross  and  follow  Me,  whosoever 
would  be  My  disciple."  There  is  something  to  do  more  than  to 
wish.      There  is  a  great  distinction  between  wishing  and  willing. 

You  wish  to  be  a  Christian,  do  you — will  be  one  ?  Your  wish- 
ing is  tantalizing.  Your  will  of  help  completes  the  man,  whether 
you  regard  it  as  a  duty  or  as  a  means  of  greatest  satisfaction. 
That  is,  we  were -made  to  be  Christians.     Being  Christians  is  situ- 


CLOSING   YEARS.  623 

ply  being  yourself  in  those  relations  to  yourself  and  to  your  fel- 
low-men and  to  your  God  for  whicli  you  were  Christians.  Did  you 
ever  undertake  to  take  apart  a  watch  ?  And  that  is  very  easy. 
Did  you  ever  undertake  to  put  it  together  again  ?  That  is  not  so 
easy.  You  don't  know  which  screw  goes  in — which  wheel  goes  in 
first.  But  one  thing  is  perfectly  clear,  and  that  is,  tliat  nothing 
else  will  fit  together  but  that  for  which  the  watch  was  made.  And 
each  wheel  is  just  entitled  to  one  space  and  to  one  function.  But 
if  you  can  bring  them  together  with  intent  of  the  maker,  it  will 
perform.  A  man  has  definite  resolutions  he  makes  by  special  re- 
flection of  his  animal  nature  and  meaning.  Take  the  servant  and 
not  his  inaster  and  the  moral  elements  and  modes  are  made  to  live 
with  him.  And  there  is  only  one  way  that  men  can  live  together. 
Kindness,  love  (justice  means  love  ;  justice  would  not  signify  the 
less).  And  we  have  a  distinct  and  unmistakable  revelation  in  Jesus 
in  the  Old  Testament.  We  know  we  have  got  to  love  our  fellow- 
men.  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  Self-love  is 
mutually  on  top.  And  then  we  know  perfectly  well  that  we  are 
affianced  to  higher  beings  than  men.  A  clean  life  in  all.  We 
know  all  these  resolutions  to  ourselves  and  in  ourselves.  And  this, 
I  say,  is  reasonable,  that  we  should  endeavor  to  live  under  this 
type  upon  which  we  are  created.  It  is  reasonable.  A  great  many 
people  go  about  saying  it  is  reasonable  for  a  man  to  be  damned, 
because  he  could  not  gulp  and  swallow  all  the  dominie  said  and  all 
the  pretended  facts.  Christianity  means  living  in  those  relations 
for  which  we  were  created,  harmonizing  it  to  ourselves,  to  our 
relations,  to  our  fellow-men  and  the  invisible  and  the  future.  I 
say  this  is  reasonable.  I  say  more  than  that,  that  it  has  in  it  the 
greatest  amount  of  inherent  happiness.  For,  although  a  man  may 
be  very  true  to  his  patience,  taking  the  average  and  the  whole  of 
life,  he  loses  rather  than  gains.  Loses  now,  but  suffers  then.  A 
man  may  think  that  because  he  runs  through  a  desperate  period 
and  then  reforms  that  the  desperation  is  all  through.  No,  no. 
Causes  sink  under  a  man  subterraneously,  as  it  were.  And  there 
is  many  a  man  who  is  crippled  at  forty-five  years  of  age  from  the 
misconduct  of  twenty  years.  Yet  there  are  seventeen  years  they 
lay  their  eggs,  and  these  eggs  lie  incubating  in  the  ground  for 
seventeen  years,  when  they  hatch  and  come  forth.  A  man  may 
by  evil   deeds  lay  the  eggs  that  will  hatch  twenty  years  after  that 


624  HENRY   WARD   BEECIIER. 

time.      And  as  a  general  truth  I  think  it  is  demonstrable  by  actual 
observation  and  experience. 

To  devotional  frames  of  mind  thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God, 
and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  Therefore,  you  must  love  yourself. 
This  shows  it,  not  by  membership  toward  the  lower  and  the  coarse, 
even  not  himself,  but  toward  his  whole  self  ;  the  original  under- 
standing of  moral  power  and  elements  ;  the  spiritual  in  him. 
Now,  when  a  man  has  this  presented  to  him,  and  is  urged  to  enter 
upon  a  Christian  life  as  the  only  honorable  one  ;  the  only  one 
that  has  the  greatest  satisfaction  in  it  ;  the  only  one  without  cares 
in  it  ;  the  height  of  duty  and  of  gratitude  toward  God.  Plow 
variously  men  meet  that  life  to  come  !  IIow  many  that  see  in 
yourself,  looking  over  the  sphere  of  life  and  life  to  come,  I  am 
resolved  what  to  do,  bearing  in  mind  what  a  resolution  means, 
what  it  executes  !  IIow  many  men  can  say  to-night,  Yes,  I  am 
resolved  what  to  do  !  I  am  afraid  there  will  be  few  that  will  say, 
I  want  to  be  a  Christian.  That  is  what  they  are  after.  Men  may 
say  on  the  other  hand,  I  hope  some  time  to  be  a  Christian.  I 
feci  sometimes  as  if  I  would  like  to  be  one,  I  wish  I  was  one. 
Just  as  a- lazy  one  wishes  he  had  the  products  of  industry.  How 
many  men  are  there  to-night  that  can  say,  I  am  resolved  what  to 
do — I  am  resolved  to  be  a  Christian  ?  Are  you  then  resolved  at 
once  to  become  a  Christian  ?  to  begin  to  become  a  Christian  at 
once  ?  In  one  sense,  no.  In  another  sense,  yes.  No  boy  ever 
learned  a  trade  at  a  blow.  But  I  can  begin  just  the  same.  No 
man  ever  became  a  scholar  by  resolution  ;  but  he  never  can  be- 
come one  without  a  resolution.  As  it  is  complex,  a  constantly 
repeating  one,  I  will  begin  to-night.  I  am  resolved  as  far  as  I 
live  and  as  far  as  I  know  my  way.  I  am  determined,  God  knows 
it.  I  am  determined  to  work  my  life  hereafter  on  my  own  princi- 
ples. I  am  resolved  to  be  a  Christian  man.  Now,  that  is  my 
condition.  This  resolution  don't  mean  according  to  this  church 
or  theology.  It  simply  means  in  itself,  I  will  regulate  my  life  in- 
side and  out  according  to  the  principles  laid  down  for  you  by  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Isn't  that  a  very  simple  thing  to  do  ?  What 
does  it  carry  with  it  ?  It  carries  nothing  in  the  face  of  this.  I 
will  therefore  begin  by  calling  away  everything  that  will  stand 
in  the  way  of  this  resolution.  May  I  continue  in  a  wicked  way  ? 
I  will  begin  as   a  part   of  the  fulfilment  of   this  resolution — I  will 


CLOSING    YEARS.  625 

stop.  That  is  the  way  of  the  repentance  which  John  began  and 
Christ  continued.  "  Repent,  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at 
hand." 

I  am  going  to  live  as  a  Christian  man  or  M'oman,  and  if  there  be 
that  which  I  know  to  be  wrong,  obviously  wrong,  in  the  incidental 
weaknesses  and  frailties  of  life,  I  am  going  to  follow  in  Christ. 
And  then,  in  the  next  place,  the  resolution  to  be  a  Christian — it 
is  not  that  I  will  be  a  Christian  next  year,  or  by  and  by,  or  on  my 
death-bed,  but  I  am  going  to  begin  at  once,  as  far  as  I  know  how. 
Are  you  ready  to  begin  your  Christian  life  by  asking  in  sincerity, 
by  asking  God  to  be  merciful  ?  Give  me  your  life,  not  to  say 
your  help.  There  are  a  great  many  precious  thoughts.  Is  there 
sincerity  in  you  ?  I  would  to  God  that  I  may  have  both  the  re- 
futing and  sustaining  power.  Are  you  ready  to  begin  that  ChriS' 
tian  life  by  opening  the  Word  of  God  and  reading  a  cKapter,  not 
a  verse  or  two,  every  day,  but  to  make  Ilim  the  man  of  your 
counsel  ?  When  any  scheme  is  formed  in  New  York  there  is  al- 
ways a  lawyer  there,  and  the  organizers  never  take  a  single  step 
without  consulting  him,  and  he  is  by  all  the  time.  It  is  a  com- 
plex thing.  A  great  deal  depends  upon  it  and  they  can't  afford 
to  go  wrong.  Are  you  willing  to  take  the  New  Testament  and 
see  what  it  says  about  pride,  and  all  ills  and  evil  spf^aking,  and  all 
self-consciousness  in  its  crisp  mode  ?  Are  you  willing  to  look  to- 
night ?  When  is  there  any  occasion  to  thank  anybody  when  they 
see  what  kind  of  an  interpretation  they  have  ?  Are  you  willing  to 
take  the  Bible  just  as  a  shipmaster  takes  a  ship,  who,  when  he 
leaves  the  last  shore-light  and  takes  his  direction,  never  says, 
"  Where  is  my  instrument?"  Are  you  willing  to  begin  a  Chris- 
tian course  and  voyage  by  giving  to  the  Word  of  God,  to  history's 
sake,  what  is  expected  of  you  ;  what  you  are  to  expect  or  reject  ; 
what  is  sensible  ;  what  is  the  resolve,  according  to  a  practical  way 
of  resolution  ?  What  is  the  other  way  ?  There  is  a  father  and 
mother  :  I  believe  they  were  Christians.  Indeed,  a  man's  mother 
is  oftentimes  more  to  him — there  are  a  great  many  men  that  are 
held  and  gone  forth  by  the  memories  of  their  mother.  Are  you 
willing  to  take  all  the  advantages  ?  Are  you  going  to  begin  it 
now  ?  You  have  been  brought  up  in  Christian  knowledge  from 
your  very  cradle.  You  have  known  all  these  things.  But  what 
Christian  life  and  duty  is,  there  is  not  a  man  here  that  needs  any 
38 


626  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

additional  inspiration.  But  can  a  man  in  resolution  come  into  a 
state  of  resolution  ?  Can  a  man,  by  simply  saying  "  I  will,"  fail  ? 
No,  no.  A  man  will  say,  "  I  can  command  love."  Advantages 
to  mankind  command  the  causes  of  love.  They  lie  within  your 
reach.  But  I  am  resolved  so  earnestly  that  I  am  going  to  avail 
myself  of  all  the  light  of  social  life  that  I  can  and  of  all  the  Chris- 
tian institutions  that  are  necessary  for  me.  Well,  ah  !  That  is 
practice,  and  that  is  his  excuse.  Are  you  going  to  say,  "  Well,  I 
will  see  about  it  "  ?  Oh,  no.  Yet  in  the  West  when  the  times  aic 
hard  they  give  a  note  payable  within  four  months.  They  pay  one 
note  by  giving  another.  And  there  are  multitudes  of  people  that 
form  a  resolution  in  that  way  after  the  second  note  is  due.  They 
may  say,  "  Well,  I  have  made  up  my  mind,  and  I  am  going  to  be 
a  Christian  as  soon  as  I  get  ready,"  When  are  you  going  to  get 
ready  ?  IVs  quieting  your  conscience  and  your  reason  now  by 
promising  yourself  that  by  and  by  you  will  take  that  step  ;  it  is  a 
resolution  that  merely  means  a  non-fulfilment  of  duty,  when 
they  are  worn  out,  deceased  in  the  service  of  self-conscience,  and 
in  old  age  and  upon  their  death-bed.  I  should  think  myself  very 
mean  if,  in  the  summer,  I  should  shell  out  the  peas  and  send  the 
pods  to  my  own  brother.  That  is  what  men  mean  to  do  with  God. 
They  mean  to  live  in  youth  after  their  ambition  ;  in  old  age  they 
hope  to  switch  on  the  right  side  and  get  into  heaven.  When  you 
come  to  examine  such  conduct  there  is  not  a  savage  that  would 
not  say  it  was  infamous.  The  different  books,  and  the  ministra- 
tions of  God  through  all  the  channels  of  nature,  and  the  kindness 
of  God  through  Jesus  Christ.  And  the  man  deliberately  says  we 
will  live  all  the  rest  that  there  is  in  life,  and  when  we  are  no  longer 
any  use  to  ourselves,  and  when  we  are  going  out  we  will  live  so  as 
to  get  into  heaven.  Two  deacons  of  a  church  had  been  warm 
friends,  and  yet  one  day  theygot  into  a  dispute  until  they  came 
positively  to  hate  each  other.  And  one  Sunday  morning,  the 
dominie,  going  by  one  of  the  elders,  heard  him  muttering  to  him- 
self, "  He  will  go  to  hell,  he  will  go  to  hell."  The  old  dom- 
inie steps  up  to  him  and  says,  "  My  dear  brother,  he  won't  go  to 
hell."  "  Yes,  he  will  go  to  hell."  "  AVell,  ray  dear  fellow,  he 
may  repent,  you  know."  "  Well,  he's  just  mean  enough  to  do 
it."  Oh,  that's  yon!  That  is  exactly  the  condition  in  which 
some  of  you  are.      You  moan  to  wait  to  get  into  heaven.      You 


CLOSING   YEARS.  62? 

are  just  mean  enough  to  do  it.  If  you  have  made  up  your  mind 
honestly  that  you  are  endeavoring  to  do  it,  He  will  help  you  from 
day  to  day  and  from  month  to  month,  and  from  year  to  year, 
growing  brighter  and  brighter.  Is  there  any  man  here  that  can 
say  in  regard  to  the  past  that  he  will  resolve  that  everything  he 
has  done  has  been  a  detriment  to  him  ? 

Resolve  what  to  do  by  making  a  resolve  to  live  a  higher  life,  a 
nobler  ideal.  I  am  determined  by  the  help  of  God  that  I  will  live 
in  such  a  way  that  I  shall  live  in  heaven.  And  if  there  is  any 
man,  don't  wait  until  to-morrow  morning.  Register  your  vow  to- 
night. Go  home  and  tell  God  of  it.  Go  home  and  tell  your  wife 
of  it.  That  is  the  very  thing  you  don't  dare  to  do.  Because, 
when  a  man  once  commits  himself  he  feels  ashamed  to  go  back, 
and  if  you  do  it's  because  you  have  not  made  up  your  mind. 
When  a  man  is  determined  that  he  will  live  a  Christian  life,  he 
will  be  willing  to  say  to  all  that  are  around  about  him,  "  I  am 
going  to  try,  and  have  made  np  my  mind  to  try."  And  if,  with 
your  own  language,  you  will  enter  upon  your  journey,  the  time 
past  in  which  I  have  served  the  will  of  the  flesh  sufficed,  and 
now,  to-night,  I  have  determined  that  I  will  begin,  with  the  help 
of  God,  to  live  a  Christian  life.  Are  there  any  of  you  that  are 
willing  to  make  that  resolve  ?  God  help  you.  For  a  while  it  will 
be  a  troublesome  endeavor,  for  a  little  while,  and  then  easier  and 
easier  and  bringing  encouragement  and  joyfulness. 


CHAPTER  III. 

LAST  HOURS DEATH FUNERAL  SERVICES. 

Mr.  Beecher's  European  trip  appeared  not  to  fatigue,  but  to 
recuperate  and  inspire  him.  Returning  after  an  expeiience  of 
constant  lecturing,  preaching,  and  visiting,  which  might  well  have 
been  expected  to  have  exhausted  his  strength,  he  took  up  his 
labors  in  the  fall  of  1886  with  fresh  zest  and  vigor.  Arriving 
on  Sunday  morning,  and  landing  too  late  to  make  it  possible 
for  him  to  preach  that  forenoon,  he  visited  each  one  of  the 
Sunday-schools  connected  with  Plymouth  Church  in  the  afternoon, 
at  a  time  when  most  men  who  suffer  with  sea-sickness,  as  he  in- 
variably does,  would  have  been  resting  from  the  fatigue  of  the 
voyage.  He  first  met  with  his  people  at  the  usual  Friday  evening 
prayer-meeting,  and  in  an  informal  account  of  his  experiences  told 
them  that  the  reception  given  him  abroad  had  put  new  heart  into 
him  ;  that  he  had  been  thinking  that  his  work  was  nearly  over, 
but  had  come  back  to  them  with  a  faith  that  there  were  some  years 
of  Christian  service  left  in  him  yet.  The  first  of  December  his 
wife  was  taken  seriously  ill,  and  for  six  weeks  he  sedulously  watched 
and  tended  her,  allowing  no  one  else  to  serve  as  her  nurse,  and 
accepting  even  from  other  members  of  the  family  only  such  assist- 
ance as  was  indispensably  necessary.  His  unremitting  care  had 
its  reward  in  her  restored  health.  Meanwhile,  the  persistence  of 
some  of  his  friends,  and  an  offer  of  publication  from  Charles  L. 
Webster  &  Co.,  induced  him  to  take  up  the  long-delayed  purpose 
to  complete  his  unfinished  "Life  of  Christ;"  he  brought  his 
proofs  and  manuscript  notes  together  and  began  a  fresh  mining  in 
the  libraries  and  bookstores.  He  agreed,  also,  as  soon  as  the 
"Life   of  Christ"  was  finished,  to  begin  his  "Autobiography." 


CLOSING  YEARS.  C29 

Desk  work  was  always  difficult  to  Mr.  Beecher  ;  his  thoughts 
moved  with  electric  rapidity  ;  the  bondage  of  the  slower-moving 
pen  was  irksome  ;  but  the  mood  had  at  last  come  upon  him,  and 
he  was  taking  hold  of  the  "  Life  of  Christ"  with  great  expectation, 
and  with,  for  him,  large  hopefulness.  To  his  friend,  Dr.  Joseph 
Parker,  of  London,  he  wrote  in  1887  : 

"  I  have  my  snug  room  upstairs,  and  am  working  cozily  and  every  day 
on  my  '  Life  of  Christ,'  which,  like  the  buds  of  spring,  is  beginning  to 
swell,  like  the  returning  birds  is  beginning  to  sing,  like  the  grass  is  be- 
ginning to  grow,  and  is  already  verj'  green  !    But  I  am  hopeful." 

Mrs.  Beecher' s  health  was  so  far  restored  by  the  last  of  February 
that  her  plans  were  perfected  for  her  usual  spring  trip  to  her 
orange  grove  in  Florida.  Her  trunks  w'ere  packed,  and  she  was  to 
sail  Tuesday,  March  8tli.  Mr.  Beecher  was  apparently  in  the  best 
of  health  and  spirits.  He  had  refused  all  lecture  engagements, 
that  he  might  devote  himself  to  his  literary  labors.  It  is  true  that 
he  was  doing  an  amount  of  work  which  would  have  been  remark- 
able in  the  case  of  any  man  even  of  much  younger  years  ;  he  was 
preaching  twice  on  the  Sabbath,  exercising  a  general  pastoral 
superintendence  over  one  of  the  largest  churches  in  the  country^, 
writing  every  week  a  letter  which  appeared  simultaneously  in  his 
old  journal,  the  Christian  Union,  and  in  several  secular  papers, 
and  carrying  on  simultaneously  the  mental  preparations  for  two 
books,  the  "  Life  of  Christ"  and  his  own  "  Autobiography."  But 
he  was  not  burdened  ;  and  it  seemed  as  true  of  him  then  as  it  had 
been  in  the  spring  preceding,  when  he  answered  a  friend  who  had 
asked  him  "If  he  were  going  to  Europe  for  his  health?" 
*'  Health  !  I  have  so  much  health  now,  that  I  don't  know  what  to 
do  with  it  !"  The  end  came  suddenly,  unexpectedly,  almost  pain- 
lessly. He  died,  as  he  often  expressed  the  wish  to  die,  with  the 
harness  on.  The  account  of  his  last  hours  has  been  communicated 
by  Mrs.  Beecher  to  a  representative  of  the  Brooklyn  Eagle, 
with  the  request  that  he  write  the  account  out  for  publication,  and 
we  cannot  do  better  than  to  transfer  this  authoritative  account  from 
the  columns  of  that  journal  to  our  pages. 

"  Thursday,  March  3d,  was  Henry  Ward  Bcccher's  last  day  of 


630  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

health  and  full  consciousness  on  the  earth.     The  day  before,  Wed- 
nesday, March  2d,  in  the  evening,  his  wife  said  to  him, 

"  '  Father,  can  you  leave  off  your  writing  to-morrow  ?  I  want 
you  to  go  with  me  to  New  York.' 

"  '  Yes,  mother,  I  will,  whether  I  can  or  not  ;  what  do  you 
want  me  to  do  ? ' 

"  The  two  called  one  another  father  and  mother  when  speak- 
ing to  or  of  one  another,  as  the  habit  of  long-married  lovers  is. 
The  appellations  of  the  children  thus  become  woven  in  with  the 
habits  of  talk  of  the  parents.  The  parental  feeling  was  so  strong 
in  both  that  its  form  of  speech  expressed  the  protective  sense  of 
each  toward  the  other. 

"  In  answer  to  his  question  Mrs.  Beecher  told  her  husband  that 
she  wanted  him  to  select  with  her  furniture  for  the  parlors  of  the 
church  and  other  things  mentioned.  They  went  to  New  York 
early  Thursday  morning,  wandered  and  shopped  there  at  will  all 
day,  and  got  home  in  good  time  for  tea,  Mr.  Beecber  taking  his 
usual  short  nap  before  that  meal.  '  It  was  the  happiest  day  of 
my  life,'  remarked  Mrs.  Beecher.  '  I  never  knew  my  husband  so 
lively,  tender,  and  joyous  before,  or  not  in  a  long  time.  His 
mind,  heart,  and  health  were  at  their  best.  He  overflowed  with 
talk,  both  humorous  and  serious.  "  I  am  so  glad,  mother,"  said 
he,  "  that  you  are  well  enough  again  to  interest  yourself  in  church 
work.  The  fair  we  have  had  got  all  the  ladies  together.  It  gave 
them  something  to  do.  Each  one's  gift  or  work  or  help  was  equal 
in  spirit  and  value.  The  proceeds  were  enough  to  newly  furnish 
the  parlors.  The  event  will  lead  to  social  meetings  again.  If 
there  has  been  any  apathy  or  hardness  of  feeling  among  the  ladies 
it  has  been  removed.  I  want  you  to  share  my  work.  You  can 
do  much  of  it  that  I  cannot  do  or  do  nearly  so  well  as  you.  I 
want  Plymouth  to  be  again  as  eminently  a  social  church  as  it  was 
in  other  years.  You  should  meet  the  ladies  frequently.  They 
love  you,  and  they  love  the  church,  and  they  love  to  please  and 
co-operate  with  you  and  work  for  the  church.  It  will  make  lis 
both  young  again."  ' 

"  In  such  talk,  and  with  pleasant  work,  the  two  passed  the  last 
day  he  was  to  see  with  fulness  of  consciousness, 

"  That  night  Mr.  Beecher  dined  with  the  family,  played  back- 
gammon  in  the  sitting-room,  waited  for  a  couple  that  wanted  to 


CLOSING   YEARS.  631 

be  married,  went  out  on  an   errand,  and  returned  a  few  minutes 
before  nine.      At  nine  he  said, 

"  '  I  guess  I'll  go  to  bed.' 

"  '  AVhy,  father,  what  does  that  mean  ?  Is  there  anything  the 
matter  with  you  ?'   asked  Mrs,  Beecher. 

'•'Nothing,'  he  smilingly  answered,  'only  I'm  tired.  I've 
done  a  good  deal  of  work  with  you  to-day.' 

"  '  But  you've  been  tired  before  and  never  retired  until  about 
ten,'  rejoined  his  wife. 

"  '  Well,  I  guess  I'll  go  to  bed  anyway,'  he  said,  and  he  did. 

"lie  bade  those  assemhled  good-night,  went  upstairs  with  a 
firm  tread,  and,  according  to  what  she  further  had  said  to  him, 
Mrs.  Beecher  went  upstairs  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later,  not  intend- 
ing then  to  retire,  but  to  write  near  him  in  the  adjoining  room. 
When  Mrs.  Beecher  went  upstairs  she  found  Mr.  Beecher' sound 
asleep  on  his  right  side,  his  head  resting  on  his  right  hand.  She 
was  surprised,  for  it  was  his  habit  to  undress  gradually,  to  sit  in 
his  shirt-sleeves  and  read  a  little,  to  talk  awhile  on  the  events  of 
the  day.  and  to  go  to  bed  about  an  hour  after  going  upstairs. 
How&ver,  Mrs.  Beecher  found  him  sleeping  so  tranquilly  that  she 
did  not  disturb  him.  She  wrote  in  the  adjoining  room  until 
1  A.M.  Then,  finding  her  husband  still  asleep,  she  concluded  to 
sleep  in  the  room  in  which  she  had  been  writing,  instead  of,  as 
her  habit  was,  with  him,  so  as  not  to  disturb  him.  She  passed 
her  hand  over  his  forehead  and  felt  of  liis  left  hand.  The  flesh 
was  warm  and  natural  and  his  sleep  was  as  the  sleep  of  a  little 
child. 

"  Some  hours  after  retiring  Mrs.  Beecher  was  aroused  by  a 
sound  in  her  husband's  room.  She  at  once  ran  to  his  side  and 
found  him  sutfering  from  extreme  nausea.  The  attack  was  long 
and  hard,  but  he  experienced  entire  relief.  It  was  between  four 
and  five  in  the  morning. 

"  '  Father,  what's  the  matter  ? '   she  asked. 

"  '  Mother,  nothing,  only  a  sick  headache,'  he  said. 

"'Henry,  you  never  had  a  headache  in  your  life  before. 
Something  must  be  wrong,'  she  anxiously  rejoined. 

"  '  No  ;  it's  only  a  sick  headache.  I  shall  be  better,'  he  re- 
plied. 

"  ^^rs.  Beecher  wiped  her  husband's  face  and  hands,  removed 


632  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

the  traces  of  the  nausea,  and  smoothed  and  arranged  his  pillows, 
While  she  was  doing  that  he  said, 

"  '  You  are  not  by  me  to-night.  Well,  dear,  go  to  sleep  again, 
and  don't  stay  up  in  your  bare  feet.' 

"  When  the  lady  returned  after  this  from  placing  a  towel  on  the 
rack  and  approached  the  bed  where  Mr.  Beecher  was  she  was 
again  surprised  to  find  he  had  instantly  fallen  into  a  profound  sleep. 
Nevertheless  she  did  not  disturb  him,  but  went  again  to  bed  in  the 
adjoining  room.  Mrs.  Beecher,  as  her  habit  is,  arose  and  dressed 
at  5  A.M.  She  noticed  her  husband  still  sleeping.  She  resumed 
her  writing,  and  was  surprised  that  neither  the  rising  bell  nor  the 
breakfast  bell  waked  him.     It  had  never  been  so  before. 

"  The  family  of  children  and  grandchildren  trooped  down  the 
stairs  that  Friday  morning,  joking,  laughing,  and  chasing  one 
another  on  their  way  to  breakfast.  Mrs.  Beecher  descended  last, 
with  a  heavy  heart,  but  hopeful  that  slumber  meant  recuperation. 
Entering  the  room,  she  narrated  what  has  been  told,  and  expressed 
her  apprehension. 

"  '  Nonsense,  mother,'  said  Colonel  Beecher.      '  You  know  the 
Beechers  all  cure  themselves  in  sleep.     I  wouldn't  waken  him.' 

"  '  There's  not  much  likelihood  of  my  waking  him  if  the  noise 
you  all  made  coming  down-stairs  didn't  doit,'  she  resumed.  Mrs. 
Beecher  then  asked  her  daughter-in-law  what  Mr.  Beecher  had 
eaten  for  supper  the  night  before,  '  Nothing  but  six  roasted 
clams,'  was  that  lady's  reply.  There  were  six  sent  to  each  plate. 
Mr.  Beecher  did  not  send  up  his  plate  a  second  time.  As  he  was 
accustomed  to  and  fond  of  that  dish,  it  was  agreed  that  that  did 
not  account  for  his  nausea. 

"  Mr.  Beecher  slept  through  the  day.  His  wife  went  to  his 
side  several  times,  but  did  not  disturb  him.  Near  four  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon,  ten  hours  after-his  attack,  she  sent  her  maid  with 
a  note  to  Dr.  Searle,  asking  him  to  come  to  see  her,  telling  him 
that  something  was  the  matter  with  Mr.  Beecher,  she  did  not 
know  what,  and  warning  him  to  say  nothing  of  it  to  the  others  till 
he  had  seen  her. 

"  The  doctor  came  and  told  Mrs.  Beecher  that  prolonged  sleep 
was  a  habit  and  a  hopeful  sign  of  her  husband  in  sickness.  They 
went  to  where  he  was.  Dr.  Searle  shook  him  by  the  shoulder, 
saying. 


CLOSING   YEARS.  633 

**  '  Dominie,  wake  up  ! ' 

"  He  slowly  wakened,  gazea  at  his  wife  and  the  doctor,  and  the 
former  said, 

"  '  Father,  you  must  get  up  and  dress.  It's  afternoon.  You'll 
have  to  go  to  prayer-meeting.     Do  you  hear  me  ?' 

"  '  Yes,  I  hear  ;  but  1  do  not  want  to  get  up.  I'll  not  go  to 
prayer-meeting  to-night.  Tell  them — '  Without  finishing  the 
sentence  he  fell  asleep  at  once.  Dr.  Searle  was  then  of  the 
opinion  that  it  was  a  severe  bilious  attack.  He  and  Mrs.  Beecher 
were  not  surprised  at  some  thickness  and  slowness  of  speech.  Mr. 
Beecher  always  spoke  in  that  way  on  first  coming  out  of  deep 
sleep. 

"The  doctor  left  to  return  at  seven.  At  seven,  Mrs.  Beecher 
told  him  she  had  tried  to  warm  her  husband's  hands  and  feet  with 
shawls  and  blankets,  but  they  were  cold  and  she  could  not  warm 
them.  At  this  Dr.  Searle  became  grave.  Going  to  the  bed  he 
with  difiiculty  again  aroused  Mr.  Beecher,  and  said  to  him, 

"  '  Raise  your  hand  !     Can  you  raise  your  hand  ? ' 

"  '  I — can — raise — it — high — enough — to — hit — you,'  slowly 
came  from  the  smiling  lips,  in  deep,  guttural  tones. 

"  He  tried  to  raise  his  hand,  but  could  hardly  raise  it  at  all. 

"  '  Please  put  out  your  tongue,'  said  the  doctor. 

"  The  patient  with  difficulty  put  it  out,  but  only  a  little  way. 

"  '  More  !     Further  !     All  !'  said  Dr.  Searle,  quickly. 

"  The  effort  to  comply  was  a  failure. 

"  Mr.  Beecher's  gaze  was  fixed  on  his  wife  and  on  the  doctor's 
face.  His  wife  held  his  left  hand  in  her  right  hand.  As  the 
good  Dr.  Searle's  countenance  knit  with  the  grief  that  confirmed 
his  apprehensions,  Mi'.  Beecher  closed  his  eyes,  and  gave  the  hand 
of  his  wife  a  long,  strong,  loving  and  earnest  pressure.  It  was  the 
realization  of  the  inevitable.  It  was  farewell.  He  never  opened 
his  eyes  again.  His  sleep  thereafter  was  constant.  His  breathing 
became  stertorious,  but  quietly  so.  At  intervals  up  to  Saturday 
morning  he  would,  under  a  strong  call  of  the  voice  and  pi^ssure  of 
the  hand,  return  or  seem  to  return  a  pressure  which  was  interpreted 
to  be  recognition.  From  Saturday  morning  until  the  end  were 
silence,  sleep,  heavy  but  regular  breathing,  and  unconsciousness. 

"  Several  times  they  thought  him  dying  when  he  slept,  but  waning 
nature  would  rally  in  sleep.      Mrs.  Beecher  held  his  hand  in  hers 


634  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

continually.  When  the  end  approached  all  the  household  were 
gathered.  It  was  their  unanimous  wish  that  none  but  themselves 
and  the  physician  should  be  present,  hut  that  wish  could  not  be 
entirely  etJected.  When  the  end  came  all  of  the  Beecher  blood 
stood  or  knelt  around.  Not  one  of  them  shed  a  tear  or  gave  ex- 
pression to  a  sob — then  and  there.  The  supreme  self-control  was 
an  obedience  to  Mr.  Beecher's  often  expressed  hope  and  wish  that 
around  his  bed  of  release  not  tears  should  fall,  but  the  feeling 
should  prevail  as  those  who  think  of  a  soul  gone  to  its  crowning." 

This  end  came  on  Tuesday  morning  at  half-past  nine  o'clock  ; 
only  a  few  friends  in  addition  to  the  members  of  the  family  were 
in  the  house  at  the  time.  A  policeman  at  the  door  kept  all  in- 
truders out,  but  Brooklyn  had  reverential  respect  for  the  last 
hours  of  the  preacher,  and  there  were  few  intruders.  A  little 
throng  of  newspaper  reporters,  with  note-book  and  pencil  in  hand, 
surrounded  the  front  door,  and  every  one  who  came  out  was  but- 
tonholed and  questioned,  but  there  was  little  or  nothing  to  tell 
until  the  spirit  passed  away.  Instantly  some  of  the  reporters  fled 
down  the  street  with  fleet  footsteps,  and  before  half-past  ten 
extras  with  news  of  Mr.  Beecher's  death,  and  descriptions,  more 
or  less  imaginary,  of  the  last  scene,  which  no  reporter  witnessed, 
were  being  called  by  the  newsboys  five  miles  away  in  the  upper 
part  of  New  York  City. 

So  quietly  had  death  approached  that  the  members  of  his  own 
family  felt  no  alarm,  not  even  enough  to  send  for  a  physician, 
until  Friday  afternoon,  and  it  was  not  until  Saturday  forenoon  that 
even  they  fully  realized  the  approach  of  death.  The  news  did  not 
reach  the  public  through  the  ordinary  evening  editions  of  the  Satur- 
day journals  ;  not  until  Sunday  morning  did  the  public  learn  that 
the  great  preacher  lay  dying,  and  then  he  had  already  passed  beyond 
consciousness.  No  one  could  have  preached  in  Plymouth  pulpit 
that  Sabbath  morning,  and  no  one  could  well  have  listened  1o 
preaching.  Happily  it  was  communion  Sunday  ;  the  sermon  was 
omitted,  and  the  hour  was  devoted  to  the  administration  of  the 
communion,  the  great  congregation  breaking  in  upon  the  hush  of 
this  solemn  service  with  many  sobs.  On  Sunday,  Monday,  and 
Tuesday  evenings  Plymouth  Church  lecture-room  and  its  adjoin- 
ing parlors  were  crowded,  while  simple  prayer-meeting  services 
were  conducted,  participated  in  by  various  members  of  the  church. 


CLOSING   YEARS.  635 

It  was  a  noticeable  fact  that  no  one  prayed  for  the  pastor's  recov- 
ery ;  it  was  accepted  by  all  as  a  fact  unalterable,  that  the  time  of 
his  going  home  had  come  ;  and  not  one  of  all  those  that  loved 
him  would  have  called  him  back. 

Ten  minutes  had  scarcely  elapsed  after  the  announcement  that 
Mr.  Beecher  had  drawn  his  last  breath,  before  a  wreath  of  roses 
■was  hung  upon  the  front  door,  where  ordinarily  crape  is  hung,  as 
an  emblem  of  the  death  within.  It  w^as  a  characteristic  and  sym- 
bolic fact.  Mr.  Beecher  believed,  with  a  perfect  religious  faith, 
that  "  the  sting  of  death  is  sin,  and  the  sting  of  sin  is  the  law," 
and  that  God  gives  to  His  children  victory  from  both  through  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He  had  always  inveighed  against  the  cus- 
tomary crape  as  a  pagan  emblem  ;  "  Provide  flowers  for  me,  not 
crape,  when  I  am  gone,"  he  had  often  said.  The  Friday  night 
preceding  his  attack  he  had  ridden  with  the  Rev.  Lindsay  Parker, 
of  St.  Peter's  Episcopal  Church,  from  a  great  temperance-meeting 
in  New  Tork,  and  Mr.  Parker  had  asked  him  a  question.  "  Tell 
me,  w^on't  you,  frankly,"  he  said,  "  are  you  really  glad  to  be  get- 
ting near  the  end  of  it  all  ?  Do  you  like  to  think  that  your  great 
work,  your  fame,  the  excitement,  the  hurrah,  and  all  that,  will 
soon  be  done  with  forever  ?  Wouldn't  you,  if  you  might,  begin 
again,  and  go  through  it  once  more,  and  have  3'ou  really  no  shrink- 
ing from  death  ?"  "  No,  no,"  Mr,  Beecher  replied,  "  I  wouldn't 
have  it  otherwise.  God  knows  I'm  glad  to  be  getting  near  home. 
I've  had  a  long,  full  life  ;  my  work  is  almost  done.  I've  enjoyed 
the  world,  and  life,  and  my  work — yes,  I've  enjoyed  it  all."  Then 
he  paused  an  instant  and  added,  in  a  voice  that  was  evidently  ut- 
tering the  deep  feeling  of  a  full  heart,  "  Not  for  that  I  would  be 
unclothed,  but  clothed  upon,  that  mortality  might  be  swallowed 
up  of  life." 

His  family,  his  friends,  and  his  church  had  learned  from  hi  in 
well  this  lesson,  and  for  them  in  some  measure,  at  least,  as  for  him 
in  full  measure  the  last  enemy  was  already  destroyed.  In  all  the 
subsequent  services,  death  was  welcomed  with  flowers,  not  with 
crape,  and  the  tears  of  the  people  were  irradiated  with  smiles. 
The  funeral  services  were  as  he  would  have  had  them  of  the  sim- 
plest description.  The  Rev.  Charles  H.  Hall,  rector  of  Trinity 
Church,  Brooklyn,  and  Mr.  Beecher  had  long  been  intimate 
friends,  and  there  had  been  an  understanding  between  them  that, 


636  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

whoever  should  die  first,  the  other  should  officiate  at  the  fu- 
neral. Thursday  morning,  March  10th,  the  simple  and  beautiful 
service  of  the  Episcopal.  Church  was  read  by  Dr.  Charles  H.  Hall 
at  the  house,  accompanied  with  a  brief  and  simple  address,  which 
was  little  more  than  a  personal  tribute  from  a  personal  friend. 
"  There  was  no  man,"  he  said,  "  whom  I  have  ever  met  or  heard 
of,  or  whose  works  I  have  ever  read,  who  impressed  me  so  deeply 
with  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit  ;  he  was  a  man  of  men,  the 
most  manly  man  I  ever  met,  but  he  was  also  a  man  of  God,  in  a 
pre-eminent  sense  of  the  word."  At  the  close  of  this  service  the 
coffin  was  removed  to  the  church,  guarded  by  a  detachment  of  the 
Thirteenth  Regiment  of  State  Militia,  a  Brooklyn  regiment  of 
which  Mr.  Beecher  had  been  the  chaplain.  The  church  had  been 
meanwhile  draped,  but  not  with  black.  Evergreens  and  palms 
covered  the  somewhat  barren  walls  of  Plymouth  Church  ;  the 
draping  being  illuminated  by  white  callas.  The  coffin  itself  was 
entirely  covered  with  flowers — lilies-of-the-valley,  maiden-hair 
fern,  and  smilax  ;  the  pulpit  and  the  chair  which  Mr.  Beecher 
used  were  abloom  with  the  floral  symbols  of  life  and  immortality. 
By  half-past  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning  all  was  ready  for  the 
admission  of  the  public,  and  by  this  time  a  crowd  had  gathered, 
patiently  and  quietly  waiting  for  admission.  From  that  hour 
until  ten  at  night  the  throng  of  people  passed  in  to  take  a  last  look 
at  the  remains.  The  weather  was  raw  and  cold,  but  at  times  the 
long  procession  reached  over  a  half  of  a  mile  away,  moving 
slowly  and  steadily  on,  and  when  at  ten  the  doors  were  closed 
there  were  many  who  were  turned  away.  Within,  a  few  members 
of  the  church  and  intimate  personal  friends  sat  in  the  pews  listen- 
ing, looking,  musing  and  conversing  with  one  another  in  subdued 
tones.  Volunteers  furnished  simple  and  appropriate  music,  some- 
times vocal,  sometimes  only  from  the  organ,  while  the  body  of 
the  great  orator  lay  in  front  of  the  pulpit,  which  had  been  his 
national  platform,  embowered  with  flowers,  .  the  air  tremulous 
with  music,  and  the  people  passing  by  in  unbroken  lines  to  bid 
him  farewell.  For  twelve  hours  he  thus  lay  amid  the  dearest 
objects  of  his  love — flowers,  music,  and  his  friends. 

The  public  services  were  held  on  Friday.  Plymouth  Church 
could  not  accommodate  a  tithe  of  those  who  desired  by  their 
attendance  to  do  honor  to  the  great  preacher.     By  direction  of  the 


CLOSING    YEARS.  G37 

city  government  tlie  public  offices  in  Brooklyn  were  closed  ;  the 
courts  and  the  public  and  private  schools  were  also  closed,  and 
business  was  suspended  during  the  hours  occupied  by  the  funeral 
services.  Four  churches  in  the  vicinity  of  Plymouth  Church  were 
opened  and  all  were  crowded.  Had  double  the  number  of  churches 
been  opened,  they  would  all  have  been  filled.  Dr.  Talmage,  at 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  said  that  the  Roman  Coliseum,  holding 
eighty  thousand  people,  would  not  have  been  large  enough  to  ac- 
commodate all  who  wished  to  attend  the  funeral  rites.  The  access 
to  Plymouth  Church  was  guarded  by  the  police.  Tickets  had  been 
issued  to  the  members  of  the  church,  and  to  a  limited  number  of 
non-members  who  had  especial  claims  to  be  present.  Only  those 
having  tickets  were  permitted  to  pass  through  the  outer  cordon  of 
police.  Yet,  in  spite  of  these  precautions,  at  a  quarter  before  ten 
the  church  was  filled.  Distinguished  men  who  came  later  than 
this,  including  Senator  Evarts  and  two  professors  from  Amherst 
College,  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  securing  admission.  Among 
those  who  attended  the  service  were  several  Catholic  clergymen. 
The  family  of  Mr.  Beecher  was  not  present.  They  had  come  to 
the  church  at  eight  o'clock  to  take  their  last  leave  of  the  dead. 

The  services  at  Plymouth  Church  were  conducted  as  those  at 
the  house  had  been  by  Dr.  Charles  H.  Hall,  who  read  portions  of 
the  Episcopal  service,  and  delivered  a  touching  and  appropriate 
address  which  will  be  found  elsewhere  in  this  volume.  Then  the 
congregation  formed  in  line  to  take  a  last  farewell  look  of  the 
well-known  face.  The  church  doors  were  opened  and  the  public 
admitted,  and  the  stream  of  the  day  before  began,  only  in  in- 
creased magnitude.  At  times,  on  Friday,  it  reached  from  the 
church  nearly  down  to  Fulton  Ferry,  about  three-quarters  of  a 
mile  distant.  The  total  number  that  passed  through  the  church 
was  by  actual  count  found  to  be  nearly  one  hundred  thousand. 
It  was  not  a  sight-seeing  crowd.  From  the  pews  in  Plymouth 
Church  I  watched  this  scene  both  on  Thursday  and  Friday.  There 
was  no  curious  gazing  about  the  church,  and  no  careless  conversa- 
tion in  the  out-going.  The  procession  was  one  of  men  and 
women  touched  as  by  a  personal  grief.  Early  on  Saturday  morn- 
ing the  body  was  taken  to  the  cemetery,  accompanied  only  by  a 
few  intimate  friends  ;  there  was  no  procession  and  no  pageantry. 
The  body   was   temporarily   laid  in   a  receiving  vault  filled  with 


638  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

abundant  flowers  by  anticipating  friends.    The  great  preacber  rests 
from  his  labor,  but  his  works  do  follow  him. 


DR.  HALL  S  ADDRESS  AT  THE  FUNERAL. 

The  hand  that  rests  so  still  yonder  laid  aside  the  pen  over  a 
page  of  the  unfinished  "  Life  of  Christ."  Possibly  the  last  flash 
of  thought,  as  the  conviction  grew  upon  him  of  the  probable  end 
of  life,  was  that  his  work  was  to  be  left  unfinished — that  he  had 
not  told  men  all  that  he  would  have  them  know  of  that  precious 
revelation.  Possibly,  as  the  spirit  fled  away  to  be  with  Christ, 
whom  he  had  been  serving,  the  full  knowledge  came  to  him  of 
that  shoreless  ocean  of  eternal  life,  which  is  to  know  God  and 
Jesus  Christ  whom  He  hath  sent.  That  is  the  beatific  vision,  the 
love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge.  We  dwell  on  one  tiny 
bay  of  it  here  and  dream  about  it.  The  departed  saints  of  God 
have  already  put  out  on  its  immeasurable  spaces,  and  learned  that 
the  life  of  Christ  is  never  finished.  It  is  the  one  Word  of 
God  which  is  ever  being  spoken — echoing  again  and  again,  on 
and  on  with  ceaseless  reverberations,  down  the  centuries.  If  there 
was  one  thing  that  stirred  the  heart  that  now  rests  from  its  labors 
more  than  any  other,  that  has  marked  his  life  and  makes  his 
memory  precious  to  us  now,  it  was  his  many-sided  utterances  of  a 
Christ  living,  as  going  about  among  men,  a  Master  who  first  and 
last  asks  us  to  believe  in  Him  rather  than  to  believe  what  others 
say  about  Him.  The  radical  question  of  this  age  has  been,  "  Is 
there  a  faculty  of  illuminated  reason  to  recognize  a  living  Christ, 
who  can  talk  to  us,  and  by  the  great  communication  of  His  mind 
and  Spirit  directly  lead  us  into  all  truth  ?"  As  monarchies  and 
hereditary  institutions,  and,  at  last,  African  slavery  have  fallen  to 
the  dust,  the  question  gathers  voice  and  insists  upon  an  answer.  It 
w'll  not  be  put  off  by  any  compromises  with  past  orders  and  insti- 
tutions, but  renews  itself  at  every  turn,  echoes  in  every  advance  in 
science  or  art,  comes  up  in  every  development  of  literature  and  so- 
cial progress.  "  Is  there  a  faith  in  a  Christ  behind  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  individual,  that  can  be  to  him  the  very  Word  of  God, 
the  illuminated,  mandatory  conscience  ?"  In  a  country  that 
dreams  as  yet  of  a  government  of  the  people  by  the  people  and 
for  the   people,  that  question  is  inevitable,  and   even  if  it  should 


CLOSING   YEARS.  G39 

send  the  sword  among  us  for  a  wliile  in  the  effort  for  peace,  it 
must  be  answered.  It  is  not  an  accident  then  altogether  that  the 
man  whose  life  has  heen  moulded  by  that  question  and  its  possible 
answers  should  liave  paused  on  the  unfinished  volume  of  the 
"  Life  of  Christ."  He  has  been  a  man  of  the  people,  Christward. 
We  remind  you,  that,  though  the  English-speaking  race  to-day 
mourns  his  call  and  recognizes  his  loss,  Americans  feel  that  he  has 
been  a  great  leader  or  adviser  in  the  guidance  of  all  manner  of  sub- 
stantial interests,  though  the  Legislature  of  the  State  has  paid  him 
an  unusual  honor — of  adjourning-— as  his  right,  though  the  presses 
and  divines  and  orators  of  all  degrees  are  trying  to  compass  the 
miglity  theme  in  glowing  words,  in  words  of  exulting  grief  that  we 
have  had  him  with  us  so  long — and  have  lost  him — yet  that,  as  he 
lies  there  so  quiet,  we  may  look  at  him  as  one  who  has  been 
tlirough  all  and  in  all  things  an  apostle  of  one  supreme  thought,  a 
preacher  of  the  everlasting  Gospel  of  the  ever-living  Christ. 
His  word  to  us  has  been  : 

"  Not  mine  to  look  where  cherubim 
And  seraphs  may  not  see, 
But  nothing  can  be  good  in  Him 
Which  evil  is  in  me." 

You  who  knew  him  best — you  who  have  listened  to  him  here  in 
this  church,  know  well  that,  first,  last  and  always,  in  no  barren  or 
dreaming  sense,  his  life  has  been  absorbed  in  this  work  and  hid 
with  Chiist  in  God.  In  the  prayers  which  he  breathed  out  here 
for  forty  years  so  simply,  you  have  been  hearing  an  inner  echo  as 
if  it  had  come  out  of  the  heart  of  Jesus.  In  his  ordinary  teaching, 
in  lectures  and  sermons,  the  one  thought  in  them  has  been  to  lead 
you  to  believe,  not  something  about  Christ,  but  to  believe  in 
Himself.  In  his  intellect,  his  heart,  his  common  life — wherever 
we,  his  neighbors,  have  felt  him — he  has  been  a  witness  to  the 
presence  of  a  Word  of  God,  the  light  that  lightens  every  man  that 
Cometh  into  this  American  world,  that  cometh  into  this  Brooklyn 
life — that  cometh  within  reach  of  the  testimonies  of  this  platform. 
Perhaps  some  would  have  wished  him  to  have  shown  more  tender 
care  of  the  withes  that  bound  him,  but  God  has  sent  him  the  fire 
that  burned  them,  and  it  was  not  for  him  to  stay  its  power. 

Men    talk    occasionally   of    his    lack    of  a    theological    system, 


640  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER. 

of  quotations  and  learned  references  and  courtesies  to  the 
authoritative  erudition  of  past  ages.  But  the  living  Christ  is 
always  greater  than  divinities  or  creeds.  The  cry  is  as  old  as 
Christianity,  "  If  we  let  this  man  thus  alone  the  Romans  will 
come  and  destroy  our  city."  Jesus  to  the  Pharisees  had 
never  learned  letters,  and  yet  the  common  people  heard  Hira 
gladly.  As  in  his  war  on  slavery  there  were  few  persuasive 
authorities,  individual  or  ecclesiastical,  to  go  back  to  and  set  in 
array,  and  he  could  only  fall  back  on  a  living  Christ,  as  Seward 
did  on  a  "  higher  law."  So  the  undertone  of  this  life  here  has 
been  a  faith  in  Christ,  a  faith  filled  with  New  England  sap  and 
silicates,  a  faith  freed  by  the  tonic  airs  of  wild  prairies  and  vigor- 
ously set  to  work  here  on  every  department  of  human  life  in  which 
the  Creator  may  be  imagined  to  take  an  interest.  Please  note 
that  we  are  here  to  "  bury  him,  not  to  praise  him."  My  opinion 
may  be  indulged  that  the  one  fact  about  him,  which  endures  in 
that  life  into  which  he  has  no>v  gone,  was  his  fidelity  to  the  great 
law  of  faith,  which  in  its  last  analysis  means  that  he  has  taken 
his  part  in  making  the  life  of  Christ  a  reality.  He  would  be  the 
first  to  allow  that  in  this  work  there  is  a  law  that  reverses  to  the 
eye  all  worldly  modes  of  comparison.  "  The  last  shall  be  first 
and  the  first  last."  The  poorest  serving  girl  that  has  caught  the 
meaning  of  his  preaching  and  hid  her  hard  life  in  Christ's  won- 
drous love,  and  now  meets  her  spiritual  teacher  in  Paradise,  finds 
him  gladly  confessing  his  wonder  at  their  surroundings — as  being, 
like  her,  "    a  sinner  saved  by  grace." 

If  the  life  of  Christ  is  never  finished  then  we  may  consent 
to  go  to  all  manner  of  teachers  for  instruction  about  it,  and  wade 
through  all  manner  of  learned  wisdom,  and  accept  for  trial  all 
manner  of  hereditary  experiment,  so  as  to  know  all  that  we  may 
?bout  Him,  but  then  to  cast  them  all  aside  in  His  presence  when 
that  light  that  shone  on  Saul  of  Tarsus  comes  blinding  down  on  us, 
and  to  ask,  *'  Lord,  what  wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do  ?"  This  is  my 
thought  of  him  to-day.  This  single  chaplet  I  would  put  upon  his 
coffin.  He  lived,  moved  and  had  his  being  in  the  Word  of  God, 
on  its  cisatlantic  side  and  spoken  in  its  American  accent.  The 
poor,  weary  souls  who  have  accepted  this  Gospel  at  his  hands  have 
rejoiced  with  the  peace  which  the  world  does  not  give,  and, 
thank  God  !  cannot  take  awav. 


CLOSING   YEARS.  641 

Is  the  life  of  Christ  ever  finished  ?  Is  not  always  the  last 
volume  lying  in  sheets,  wanting  the  last  touch — always  receiving 
the  newest  revelations  of  its  oldest  meanings  ?  Give  a  glance  at 
His  history.  St.  Luke,  the  most  scholarly  of  the  Evangelists,  sup- 
posed that  he  had  finished  it  once — but  now  we  hear  from  him, 
"  The  former  treatise,  0  Theophilus  !  of  all  that  Jesus  began 
(errato)  both  to  do  and  teach" — began,  not  finished.  There  was 
a  new  power  in  the  world  coming  to  the  surface.  There  was  a 
mystical  Christ  entering  into  the  weary  heart  of  humanity  and 
continuing  both  to  do  and  to  teach.  St.  Luke  tells  us  of  an  elo- 
quent Hellenistic  youth  who  pleaded  with  radiant  face  against  the 
blindness  of  hereditary  traditions  and  saw  "  the  glory  of  God,  and 
Jesus  standing  at  the  right  hand  of  God. ' '  At  his  word  the  scholar 
of  Gamaliel  rides  forth  to  crush  the  new  heresy  that  threatens  to 
break  down  the  old  traditions  and  is  smitten  to  the  earth  with  the 
splendors  of  the  new  Shechinah  in  the  temple  of  the  individual 
heart  and  starts  on  a  new  career.  Or,  again,  Paul  goes  back  to 
the  old  temple  of  his  fathers,  and  Jesus  confronts  him  there  and 
bids  him  depart  and  go  far  hence  to  the  Gentiles,  Men  became 
possessed  with  an  inspiration  that  changed  all  things  with  a  royal 
regeneration,  and  it  was  Jesus  always  who  continued  to  do  and  to 
teach.  Miracle  passes  into  law,  and  the  evangelist  has  only  begun 
again  the  story  of  the  unending  life  and  left  its  final  volume  un- 
written. 

St.  John,  the  divine,  once  thought  that  a  Gospel  of  his  had 
told  the  wondrous  story  of  that  Sacred  Life  ;  but  again,  on  a  holy 
evening  as  he  mused,  lo,  the  High  Priest  stood  before  him  in  the 
great  temple  of  the  Universe,  and  gathered  the  splendors  of  the 
sunset  clouds  as  His  garments  and  took  on  the  sound  of  many 
"  waters"  as  His  voice,  and  royally  served  the  little  churches  of 
Asia,  in  what  men  now  call  the  "  progrpss  of  events,"  His  mes- 
sage was,  "  I  am  He  that  liveth  and  was  dead  ;  and,  behold,  I  am 
alive  forevermore,  amen  !  and  have  the  keys  of  death  and  hades." 
So  John  tried  to  give  utterance  to  the  grander  sides  of  Jesus. 
Before  in  his  Gospel  he  had  posed  Him  as  meek  and  lowly,  sitting 
languid  with  the  summer  heat  and  dusty  with  the  way  ;  as  he 
wrote  it,  "  sitting  thus  on  the  well."  Now  he  shows  Him  as  still 
on  the  earth,  the  High  Priest  making  intercession,  the  Knightly 
Rider,  the  throned  Lamb  of  God,  the  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of 
39 


642  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

lords.  Did  His  life  end  with  the  Apocalypse  ?  Let  the  suffer- 
ings and  triumphs  of  the  Christ  that  remained  answer. 

So,  again,  when  Northern  barbarians  crushed  the  fair  and  seemly 
defences  of  Roman  civilization  in  which  the  Church  was  tempted 
to  rest,  then  the  great  Bishop  of  Hippo  revealed  to  his  age  the 
City  of  God — the  spiritual  organization  of  the  mystical  Christ  and 
His  kingly  reign  began. 

So,  again,  when  the  brutal  ages  ensued  of  fierce  contests  with 
iron  mailed  kings  and  savage  lords,  the  great  Hildebrand  roused 
the  faithful  to  a  new  obedience  to  organized  spiritual  forces  as 
supreme,  and  founded  the  papal  throne  as  the  visible  sacrament  of 
an  invisible  monarch.  The  crozier  testified  again  to  a  higher  con- 
ception of  the  great  High  Priest,  who  went  forth  with  every  poor 
missionary,  monk  or  hermit,  and  thrilled  all  Europe  with  new  life. 
When  that  rule  became  in  time  corrupt  and  tyrannical,  other  men 
of  renown  arose  to  recall  their  ages  to  the  Christ  who  bade  every 
soul  find  its  justification  in  faith  and  accept  from  Him  directly  its 
election  as  the  everlastino;  decree  of  the  accelcss  Creator 

But  to  come  at  once  to  our  American  soil,  every  advance  that 
the  world  has  made  has  been  toward  the  rights  of  all  men,  to  a 
free  conscience,  to  equality  of  privilege,  man  with  man,  and  to  the 
solemn  duty  of  faith  in  a  Christ  who  comes  to  all  directly  in  the 
might  of  the  spirit  and  mind  of  Jesus.  Forty  years  ago  that  ques- 
tion of  a  living  Christ,  in  whom  we  live  and  believe,  was  knocking 
at  the  doors  of  men's  consciences  on  the  side  of  orthodox  tradi- 
tions. On  its  intellectual  side  it  was  bound  to  disturb  the  whole 
Christian  life  of  this  country. 

That  question  was  predestined  to  produce  some  man  or  some 
men  who  would  be  driven  to  reinvestigate  the  platforms  which  had 
sufficed  for  a  humbler  past.  Whether  this  man  has  done  it  well 
or  ill  we  leave  to  the  verdict  of  the  future.  He  has  certainly  com- 
pelled all  men  to  think  of  it  and  recognize  it.  He  has  left  a  broad 
mark  upon  the  Christian  life  of  his  age — rather  a  stimulus  iu  its 
heart  to  earnest  and  devout  effort  to  make  the  Christ  a  true  pres- 
ence, to  honor  daily  life  as  capable  of  agenuine  transabstantiation, 
so  that  a  plain  man  may  say  now,  as  an  earnest  man  once  said, 
"  I  am  crucified  with  Christ — nevertheless  I  live  ;  yet  not  I,  but 
Christ  livcth  in  me  ;  and  the  life  1  now  live  in  the  flesh  I  live  by 
the  faith  of  the  Sou  of  God,  who  laved  me  and  gave  Himself  for 


HENRY    WAnn    BEECUER    T.YINO    IN    STATE    IN    PLYMOUTH    CHURCH. 


CLOSING  YEARS.  643 

me."  Making  no  pretence  to  being  a  theologian  or  a  scholar,  my 
faith  rests  in  the  possibility  of  an  illuminated  conscience.  My 
gratitude  goes  forth  to  him  who  lies  here,  that  he  has  enunciated 
that  creed  with  body,  soul  and  spirit.  He  loved  all  things  find 
his  eloquence  has  adorned  and  beautified  all  in  subservience  to  that 
belief.  If  the  Christ  indeed  now  feeds  the  oil  to  the  golden  lamps 
of  special  churches  and  lives  on  as  truly  God  with  us  as  ever  He 
was,  our  brother  comprehends  that  his  last  symbol  of  earthly  work 
was  properly  the  unfinished  volume  of  his  "  Life  of  Christ."  Let 
us  follow  him  as  he  followed  Christ. 

Let  us  turn  away  to  another  thought.  Abraham  was  to  the 
Israelites,  in  some  things,  what  Jesus  is  to  us — the  type  of  a  cove- 
nant system.  We  now  refer  to  him  in  a  single  point.  The  Lord 
came  to  the  old  Hebrew  of  His  own  divine  will,  as  He  saw  him 
somewhat  resting  in  earthly  happiness,  and  tried  him  to  the  quick 
— deliberately  shocked  him  into  those  days  of  awful  agony — with 
his  very  faith  on  the  totter.  Then  as  the  angelic  vision  held  back 
his  hand,  the  patriarch  found  in  his  trial  the  ideal  of  the  cross. 
He  "  saw  the  day  of  Christ  and  was  glad."  Paul,  in  the  same 
line,  tells  us  of  a  desire  in  his  heart  "  to  know  the  power  of  the 
resurrection  and  the  fellowship  of  His  sufferings,  being  made  con- 
formably to  His  death  ;  if  by  any  means  he  might  attain  unto  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead."  Jesus  also  means  much  the  same  when 
He  bids  us  take  up  our  crosses  and  follow  Him.  Whenever  He 
sees  us  too  full  of  earthly  wishes  or  cares  or  success,  and  in  danger 
from  prosperity,  He  does  for  us  what  He  did  for  Abraham  and 
Job  and  Paul,  and  what  He  did  for  our  brother.  He  sends  a 
cloud  over  prosperity  to  win  us  by  wholesome  discipline,  "  if  by 
any  means  we  can  attain  unto  the  mysteries  of  the  resurrection." 
A  brave  and  weary  heart  is  here  at  rest — brave  of  old  to  dare 
brutal  force  and  defy  the  violence  of  mobs  and  ruffians  in  speaking 
for  the  slave  ;  brave  to  accept  the  murmurs  and  doubts  of  his 
political  friends,  when  conscience  prompted  to  part  from  them  ; 
bravest  to  wrestle  alone  with  a  great  sorrow,  when  he  could  find  no 
earthly  help.  We  honor  him  for  the  courage  of  bis  former  acts. 
We  love  him  and  wonder  at  him  for  the  calm,  sweet,  gentle  resig- 
nation of  these  last  years.  God,  I  believe,  has  led  him  step  by 
step  to  spend  his  last  days  among  us  with  a  wisdom  gained  from 
the  cross  ;  a  tender,  gentle,  soberer  wisdom  which  helped  him  to 


644  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

see  the  Captain  of  our  salvation  who  was  made  perfect  through 
suffering,  that  we  may  all  be  one,  and  the  great  Sufferer  not 
ashamed  to  call  us  brethren. 

On  his  last  Sunday  evening  in  this  place,  two  weeks  ago,  after 
the  congregation  had  retired  from  it,  the  organist  and  one  or  two 
others  were  practising  the  hymn, 

"  I  heard  the  voice  of  Jesus  say, 
Come  unto  me  and  rest." 

Mr.  Beecher,  doubtless  with  that  tire  that  follows  a  pastor's 
Sunday  work,  remained  and  listened.  Two  street  urchins  were 
prompted  to  wander  into  the  building,  and  one  of  them  was  stand- 
ing, perhaps,  in  the  position  of  the  boy  whom  Raphael  has  immor- 
talized, gazing  up  at  the  organ.  The  old  man,  laying  his  hands 
on  the  boy's  head,  turned  his  face  upward  and  kissed  him,  and 
with  his  arms  about  the  two,  left  the  scene  of  his  triumphs,  his 
trials  and  his  successes,  forever. 

It  was  a  fitting  close  to  a  grand  life,  the  old  man  of  genius  and 
fame  shielding  the  little  wanderers,  great  in  breasting  traditional 
ways  and  prejudices,  great,  also,  in  the  gesture,  so  like  him,  that 
recognized,  as  did  the  Master,  that  the  humblest  and  the  poorest 
were  his  brethren,  the  great  preacher  led  out  into  the  night  by  the 
little  nameless  waifs. 

The  great  life  of  Christ  is  left  unfinished  for  us  to  do  our 
little  part,  and  weave  our  humble  deeds  and  teachings  into  the 
story.  Men  will  praise  our  brother  for  genius,  patriotism,  victories 
and  intellectual  labors.  My  love  for  him  had  its  origin  in  his 
broad  humanity,  his  utter  lack  of  sham,  his  transparent  love  of  the 
"  unction  from  above"  that  dwells  in  and  teaches  and  beautifies 
the  lines  of  duty.  He  said  of  his  father,  "  The  two  things  which 
he  desired  most  were  the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  men." 
So  was  it  with  him,  as  the  hearts  of  grateful  myriads  attest.  But 
we  bid  him  here  farewell,  and  to  me  oftenest  will  come  the  vision 
of  him  passing  out  of  yonder  door  with  his  arm  about  the  boys, 
passing  on  to  the  City  of  God,  where  he  hears  again  the  familiar 
voice  of  the  Master  saying,  "  Of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven." 

And  now,  brethren  of  Plymouth  Church,  I  have  fulfilled  the 
promise  made  to  my  friend.     I  have  opened  my  whole  heart  to 


CLOSING   YEARS.  645 

the  public  simply  to  show  that  I  loved  him  and  loved  him  dearly 
enough  to  pay  his  memory  the  little. honor  that  I  have.  The  bond 
that  has  bound  us  together,  though  unknown  to  the  many  and 
not  very  often  expressed,  I  believe  can  word  itself  in  two  verses 
of  the  Quaker  poet  of  America.  Our  dead  brother  and  I,  although 
he  was  a  Congregatlonalist  and  I  an  old  hereditary  Episcopalian, 
both,  like  the  Quaker,  believing  in  the  Spirit's  presence,  alike  held 
these  words  true  : 

"  I  sit  beside  the  Silent  Sea, 
And  wait  the  muffled  oar  ; 
No  harm  from  Him  can  come  to  me 
On  ocean  or  on  shore. 

"  I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 
Their  frond-palms  in  the  air  ; 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  His  love  and  care." 


CHAPTER  IV. 


A    NATION  S    MOURNING. 


No  death,  not  even  excepting  that  of  Abraham  Lincohi,  has 
produced  more  widespread  expressions  of  sorrow  throughout  the 
American  natiou  than  the  death  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  Hold- 
ing no  office  in  either  Church  or  State,  a  simple  minister  in  a  de- 
nomination which  is  without  a  hierarchy,  and  in  a  local  church  in 
which  his  ecclesiastical  power  was  no  greater  than  that  of  the 
humblest  member,  his  death  was  accounted  a  national  event,  and 
in  the  tributes  to  his  memory  men  of  all  sections,  parties,  and  de- 
nominations united.  Many,  perhaps  most  of  his  eulogists,  had 
some  word  of  criticism.  The  Republican  could  not  quite  forget 
that  Mr..  Beecher  had  been  an  Independent  in  politics,  and  had 
spoken  and  voted  for  a  Democratic  candidate  for  the  Presidency. 
The  orthodox  divine  thought  him  too  liberal  to  be  honored  as  a 
safe  guide  ;  the  libera!  divine  though  he  never  quite  shook  off  the 
influence  of  his  early  orthodox  education.  Against  some  article 
in  almost  every  man's  creed  he  had  at  some  time  run,  because  his 
faith  was  too  large  to  be  contained  in  any  political  or  ecclesiastical 
formula.  The  cautious  men  criticised  him  as  too  audacious,  and 
the  radical  as  too  conservative.  But  there  was  a  substantial  testi- 
mony from  all  classes  and  all  schools  that  a  great  and  a  good  man 
had  departed.  In  pulpits  representing  every  school  of  thought, 
on  the  Sabbath  following  his  death,  sermons  were  delivered  on  his 
career  and  character.  In  all  sorts  of  organizations,  religious  and 
secular,  resolutions  to  his  memory  were  passed.  In  every  kind  of 
journal,  from  the  Turf  and  Field  to  the  more  conservative  re- 
ligious organ,  there  was  some  recognition  of  his  services  to  the  age 
in  which  he  had  lived.  Here  and  there  some  party  newspaper, 
embittered  by  partisan  prejudice,  or  some  theological  opponent 
who  could  see  no  excellence  beyond  the  limit  of  his  own  creed,  or 
some  idiosyncratic  individual  who   had    never  been  emancipated 


CLOSING   YEARS.  647 

from  the  suspicion  engendered  by  the  great  trial,  expressed  dis- 
sent by  words,  or  by  more  expressive  silence  ;  but  these  expres- 
sions of  hostility  or  disapprobation  were  very  few,  Mr.  Beechcr 
had  seen  something  good  in  men  of  all  classes — orthodox  and 
liberal,  Protestant  and  Catholic,  Gentile  and  Jew,  saint  and  sinner 
— and  they  all  discovered  something  good  in  him.  A  striking 
testimony  to  his  catholicity,  and  a  striking  illustration  of  the  uni- 
versal regard  for  liim  was  aflEorded  by  a  memorial  service  held  in 
Plymouth  Church  the  Sabbath  evening  after  his  death.  It  was 
probably  the  most  remarkable  ever  witnessed  in  the  history  of 
Christendom,  as  a  testimonial  of  the  catholicity  of  that  love  which 
breaks  down  all  barriers  of  creed  and  unites  all  men  in  a  common 
brotherhood.  Long  before  the  service  the  church  was  crowded, 
and  probably  twice  as  many  were  turned  away  as  found  admission. 
The  speakers  were  :  the  Rev.  S.  il.  Camp,  Unitarian  ;  the  Rev. 
A.  M.  Freeman  (colored),  Presbyterian  ;  the  Rev.  Dr.  I.  K. 
Funk,  Lutheran  ;  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Ager,  Church  of  the  New  Jeru- 
salem ;  the  Rev.  Dr.  Alraon  Gunnison,  Universalist ;  the  Rev.  Dr. 
George  E.  Reed,  Methodist  ;  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Roberts,  Baptist  ; 
Rabbi  Wintner,  of  the  Beth  Elohim  Synagogue,  Williamsburg  ; 
the  Rev.  U.  D.  Gulick,  Reformed  ;  the  Rev.  Lindsay  Parker, 
Episcopalian  ;  the  Rev.  Dr.  Humpstone,  Baptist,  and  the  Revs. 
James  G.  Roberts  and  Lyman  Abbott,  Congregationalist.  There 
was  no  Catholic  priest  upon  the  platform,  but  that  Church  was 
represented  by  a  letter  from  Dr.  McGlynn,  a  part  of  which  was 
as  follows  : 

"  It  is  a  sign  of  the  dawning  of  the  better  day  for  which  the 
world  has  so  long  yearned  that  such  a  meeting  should  be  possible, 
and  that  you  and  yours  should  so  earnestly  desire  the  presence  of 
a  clergyman  of  that  Church  which  seems  so  remote  and,  too  many 
would  say,  so  antagonistic  to  yours.  Foremost  in  the  work  of 
hastening  the  coming  of  the  better  day  was  the  great  man  whose 
death  we  mourn  and  for  whose  work  we  give  thanks.  None  other 
so  well  as  he  tnught  the  men  of  his  land  and  time  to  exalt  the 
essentials  of  religion  pure  and  undefiled  in  which  we  all  agree,  and 
to  minimize  the  differences  that  seem  to  separate  us.  To  him  was 
given  to  see  with  clearer  vision,  to  reveal  with  unequalled  genius, 
and  with  tireless  energy  to  make  common  among  men  the  meaning 
of  Him  whom  we  all  revere  as  our  divine  Teacher,  who  taught  of 


648  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

old  on  tlie  Mount  and  by  the  seasliore  the  core  of  all  religions — 
the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man."  Such  a 
letter,  read  at  such  a  meeting,  formed  a  fitting  close  to  the 
services  in  honor  of  him  to  whom  Christianity  was  neither  a 
ritual  nor  a  creed,  but  a  life  lived  in  the  spirit  of  Christ. 

There  is  no  space  to  transcribe  here  the  words  of  honor  from 
hundreds  of  pulpits  and  scores  of  organizations  ;  I  can  at  best 
select  a  few  as  typical  and  illustrative  of  all  the  rest.  The  Clerical 
Union  of  New  York  (Congregational)  and  the  corresponding  body 
of  Boston  passed  tributes  of  respect  to  his  genius  and  his  services  ; 
so  did  the  similar  body  in  Chicago,  by  a  vote  the  more  significant 
because  at  the  first  meeting  at  which  such  resolutions  were  intro- 
duced they  were  withdrawn  because  of  opposition  to  them.  But 
the  public  feeling  was  so  strong,  and  the  rebukes  of  the  theological 
narrowness  of  this  opposition  were  so  universal  and  so  pointed  that 
at  a  second  meeting  the  resolutions  were  passed  with  only  two  dis- 
senting votes.  Undenominational  bodies  of  evangelical  clergy,  and 
bodies  of  clergy  representing  other  denominations,  passed  similar 
resolutions  ;  we  note  especially  as  illustrations  those  adopted  by 
the  Baptist  ministers  of  Philadelphia  and  the  evangelical  clergy  of 
Indianapolis,  his  old  home.  Though  it  is  long  we  give  place  here 
to  the  minute  adopted  by  the  Clerical  Union  of  Brooklyn,  because 
this  body  includes  the  leading  clergy  of  all  denominations  in  the 
city  where  Mr.  Beecher's  life  had  been  spent,  his  greatest  battles 
fought,  and  his  bitterest  trials  experienced. 

At  a  special  meeting  of  the  Clerical  Union,  of  Brooklyn,  held 
Friday  morning,  March  11th,  the  following  minute  was  unanimously 
adopted  : 

Whereas,  In  the  providence  of  God  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  a  constant  member  of  this  body  for  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  has  been  called  to  depart  this  life  :  We,  therefore, 
members  of  the  Clerical  Union,  including  representatives  of  Con- 
gregational, Presbyterian,  Baptist,  Reformed,  Methodist  and 
Lutheran  Churches  in  this  city,  unite  in  the  following  testimonial 
of  affectionate  regard  to  his  memory  :  We  bow  reverently  before 
Almighty  God,  in  the  intimate  sense  of  an  irreparable  loss,  but 
yet  also  with  gratitude  for  the  painless  close  of  our  brother's  life, 
and  in  special  and  heartfelt  acknowledgment  of  the  manifold 
blessings  which,  by  the  divine  grace  through  his  prolonged  work 


CLOSING   YEARS.  649 

and  ministry,  have  been  imparted  to  the  city,  the  nation,  and  the 
world.  Inheriting  in  a  rare  degree  both  bodily  and  mental  vigor, 
he  was  himself  endowed  with  a  most  quick,  varied  and  commanding 
genius,  and  was  furnished  with  a  range  and  readiness  of  physical 
gift  and  mental  faculty,  a  wealth  of  poetic  and  emotional  sensi- 
bility, a  spiritual  insight  and  an  enthusiasm  for  the  truths  which 
kindle  and  master  men,  such  as  have  made  him  supreme  among  the 
preachers  and  orators  of  his  time.  These  extraordinary  gifts  he 
has  uniformly  devoted  to  the  service  of  his  fellow-men  ;  and  this 
with  a  fervor,  bravery  and  constancy  that,  by  universal  consent, 
have  made  him  a  foremost  champion  of  human  liberty  and  the 
rights  of  the  oppressed.  Philanthropy  was  his  vital  breath.  He 
was  a  friend  of  the  weak  and  the  poor.  He  was  the  advocate  of 
the  down-trodden.  He  was  the  foe  of  slavery  and  the  lover  and 
liberator  of  the  slave.  And  yet,  in  this  vehement  and  lifelong 
warfare  against  tyranny  he  maintained  candor  of  judgment  and 
kindliness  of  temper.  Both  by  the  sweep  of  his  genius  and  by 
the  sv?eetness  of  his  disposition  he  showed  himself  superior  to 
partisanship.  At  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  his  sentiment  toward 
all  sections  of  the  land  was  one  of  amity.  Even  at  Sumter  he  was 
a  prophet  of  the  era  of  good-will  sure  to  follow  the  strife  in  which 
we  were  then  engaged,  and  when  the  flag  was  raised  he  uttered 
the  oration  which  voiced  the  new-born  regard  of  the  whole  nation 
for  the  people  from  whom  had  been  lifted  the  shackles  of  slavery. 
Those  whom  he  had  defended  he  also  warned  and  counselled. 
Those  whom  he  assailed  he  nevertheless  pitied  and  forgave.  No 
man  and  no  class  of  men  were  wholly  alien  from  his  sympathy. 
Man  was  his  favorite  study  ;  and  the  love  of  men  and  of  all  men 
his  supreme  passion.  His  chosen  field  of  service  was,  therefore, 
the  ministry  of  the  Christian  Gospel.  Its  office  was  to  him  as 
broad  as  philanthropy  itself.  Its  pulpit  was  his  home  and  his 
throne.  Its  maxims  of  justice  and  charity  were  the  burden  of  his 
message.  Differing  often  and  radically  from  many  of  his 
brethren,  even  from  those  who  loved  him  most,  upon  points  of 
doctrine,  he  yet  felt  himself  to  be  at  one  with  them  in  the  affec- 
tionate and  adoring  homage  with  which  he  bowed  before  the 
Crucified  and  Divine  Lord  and  Saviour.  Christ  was  his  glory. 
Love  was  the  central  theme  of  his  speech,  and  the  moral  elevation 
and  salvation  of  men  the  chief  object  of  his  regard.     We  there- 


650  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

fore  lay  upou  his  grave  the  tribute  of  our  sincere  gratitude  and 
affection.  We  have  felt  the  charm  of  his  affluent  and  radiant  per- 
sonality. All  men  were  acquainted  with  his  genius,  with  the  fact 
that  he  possessed  a  rare  and  many-sided  nature.  All  men  knew 
him  as  a  preacher,  as  a  lecturer,  as  a  writer  of  books  and  for  the 
press,  even  as  a  scientist  and  farmer  in  his  practical  acquaintance 
with  these  departments.  We  knew  him  as  a  brother  man.  We 
saw  him  in  the  freedom  of  the  social  circle,  where  his  eye  flashed 
with  enthusiasm  at  words  spoken  by  his  brethren,  and  where  his 
heart  warmed  toward  opinions  and  experiences  that  opened  new 
vistas  of  thought,  and  reached  out  to  possibilities  beyond  the  or- 
dinary ken.  In  moments  of  bereavement,  of  chastening  and  of  sor- 
row among  us  he  was  the  one  man  chosen  without  a  vote  to  give 
expression  to  the  sentiment  that  struggled  for  utterance.  We 
cannot  make  him  dead.  He  has  had  love,  fame,  popular  ap- 
plause, the  support  of  a  most  devoted  church.  He  goes  on  with- 
out a  break  into  a  realm  where  genius  can  unfold  all  her  powers  ; 
where  the  soul  can  expand  to  the  utmost  of  its  possibilities,  and 
where  the  man  we  knew  can  behold  the  Christ  we  all  love,  and 
worship  Him  as  Lord  of  all.  To  his  faithful  wife,  and  to  the 
members  of  his  family  and  household,  we  respectfully  extend  the 
assurance  of  our  deepest  sympathy  and  our  prayers.  We  pray 
that  the  calmness  of  his  own  departure  may  minister  something  of 
tranquillity  to  them  in  the  midst  of  their  grief  ;  and  esjiecially  we 
pray  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  our  Blessed  Master  and  Divine  Lord, 
to  the  memorials  of  whose  earthly  life  he  had  devoted  the  ab- 
sorbed and  eager  studies  of  his  last  days,  may  graciously  impart 
to  them  in  this  day  of  their  affliction  the  light  of  His  conscious 
presence  and  His  assuring  grace. 

Resolved,  That  as  a  mark  of  respect,  we  attend  his  funeral  in  a 
body  and  seek  by  increased  devotion  to  fulfil  the  tasks  he  left  un- 
completed in  our  beloved  city. 

Resolved,  That  a  copy  of  this  minute  and  these  resolutions  be 
sent  to  Mr.  Beecher's  family. 

Justin  D.  Fulton,  Chairman,  L  K.  Funk, 

Edward  P.  Terhune,  A.  J.  Lyman, 

George  E.  Pveed,  T.  A.  Nelson,  President, 

Edward  P.  Ingersoll,  J.  G.  Roberts,  Secretary. 


CLOSING   YEARS.  651 

Nor  were  tliese  expressions  of  affection  and  esteem  confined  to 
the  evangelical  clergy.  From  Unitarian  and  Universalist,  Jew  and 
Romanist,  they  came  in  pulpit  addresses,  newspaper  editorials,  and 
published  letters. 

Nor  were  these  testimonials  confined  to  ecclesiastical  leaders  and 
organizations.  The  New  York  Legislature  adjourned  that  its 
members  might  attend  the  funeral  services,  as  quite  a  number  did. 
Both  Senate  and  Assembly  passed  resolutions  ;  those  of  the  Senate 
were  as  follows  : 

Whereas,  The  Senate  has  received  information  of  the  death  of 
one  of  the  most  honored,  influential,  and  beloved  citizens  of  the 
State,  and  desires  to  express  its  appreciation  of  the  man,  and  its 
sympathy  with  his  family  and  friends  ;  be  it  therefore 

Resolved,  That  the  Senate  of  the  State  of  New  York  have  heard 
with  profound  regret  of  the  sudden  death  of  the  Rev.  Henry 
Ward  Beecher.  His  character,  genius,  and  eloquence,  his  ardent 
patriotism,  his  constant  devotion  to  the  cause  of  freedom  at  home 
and  abroad,  his  love  for  his  whole  country  and  the  whole  world, 
his  eminent  services  as  a  public  teacher  and  a  citizen  in  the  darkest 
hour  of  the  republic,  and  his  unflinching  courage  in  the  advocacy 
of  what  his  conscience  believed  to  be  right,  have  made  his  name 
honorable  and  dear  as  much  to  those  who  differed  from  him  as  to 
those  who  agreed  with  him,  and  his  fame  is  one  of  the  brightest 
possessions  of  this  State. 

Resolved,  That  the  Senate  tenders  the  assurance  of  its  deep  sym- 
pathy to  the  family  and  personal  friends  of  our  departed  fellow- 
citizen,  g,nd  that  the  clerk  of  the  Senate  be  directed  to  communi- 
cate a  copy  of  these  resolutions  to  the  widow  and  family  of  the 
deceased. 

Resolved,  That  as  a  mark  of  respect  to  the  memory  of  the  de- 
ceased the  Senate  do  now  adjourn. 

Similar  resolutions  were  passed  by  the  Board  of  Aldermen  of 
the  city  of  Brooklyn,  which  directed  that  appropriate  emblems  of 
mourning  till  after  the  day  of  the  funeral  be  displayed  on  the  City 
Hall,  that  the  aldermen  attend  the  funeral  in  a  body,  and  that  the 
public  oflfices  be  closed  on  the  day  of  the  funeral. 

Unofficial  bodies  expressed  themselves  in  like  manner.  Reso- 
lutions of  respect  were  passed  by  the  Union  League  Club  of  New 
York  City,  of  which  Mr.  Beecher  was  an  honorary  member,  by 


652  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

the  Hamilton  Club,  the  social  club  of  Brooklyn,  and  by  Republi- 
can, Prohibition,  and  Democratic  clubs.  Individual  churches, 
several  Jewish  synagogues,  the  Brooklyn  Post  of  the  Grand  Army 
"of  the  Republic,  the  Alumni  of  Amherst  College,  even  the  street 
Arabs  of  Brooklyn,  in  touching  and  characteristic  resolutions,  ex- 
pressed their  love  for  the  patriot,  the  preacher,  and  the  citizen, 
and  their  sorrow  in  his  death.  Of  these  tributes  one  only  will  we 
give  here  as  a  type  of  all — that  adopted  by  the  Union  League  Club 
of  New  York  City  : 

Inasmuch  as  it  has  pleased  Almighty  God  to  remove  from  the 
scenes  of  earth  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  whose  long,  event- 
ful, and  distinguished  life  is  known  and  recognized  throughout  the 
world  ;  be  it  therefore 

Resolved,  That  the  Union  League  Club  feels  moved  by  the  com- 
mon sentiments  of  mourning  which  the  occasion  has  universally 
called  forth,  and  desires  to  add  to  the  expressions  of  other  bodies 
its  sense  of  appreciation  of  the  great  man  who  has  now  gone  from 
us  forever. 

Resolved,  That  in  the  person  of  Uenry  Ward  Beecher  we  recog- 
nize, first  of  all,  a  great  moral  teacher  whose  inspiration  arose  from 
an  undyinc:  love  for  humanity  and  a  belief  in  its  worth  and  upward 
tendencies. 

Resolved,  That  his  example  as  a  liberal  teacher,  not  only  in 
secular  and  political  affairs,  but  in  religion  also,  has  produced  a 
marked  effect  upon  the  age,  and  has  tended  in  the  direction  of 
leading  men  to  a  higher  and  better  appreciation,  not  only  of  their 
earthly  responsibilities  and  duties  toward  each  other,  but  to  a  truer 
sense  and  knowledge  of  their  relations  to  their  Creator. 

Resolved,  That  the  State  and  nation  has  in  the  death  of  Mr. 
Beecher  lost  a  patriot  whose  love  of  country  was  always  upper- 
most, and  whose  services  in  its  belralf,  at  a  time  and  place  of  the 
most  trying  nature,  were  equal  to  the  great  necessities  at  hand, 
and  whose  labors  at  that  critical  juncture  were  so  peculiarly  deli- 
cate and  effective  that  their  value  can  never  be  overstated,  as  re- 
membrance of  them  can  never  perish  from  the  hearts  of  his  grate- 
ful countrymen. 

Resolved,  That  we  also  recognize  in  Mr.  Beecher  a  man  of 
mighty  intellect,  lofty  genius,  marvellous  fertility  of  thought,  and 
unsurpassed  in  its  expression,  and  that  his  contributions  to  the 


CLOSING  YEARS.  653 

literature  of  the  country  will  always  retain  tlie  conspicuous  place 
wliicli  his  writings  now  occupy. 

Resolved,  That  this  club  hereby  extends  to  his  bereaved  family 
its  most  profound  sympathy  for  the  great  loss  their  domestic  circle 
has  sustained,  and  that  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be  sent  to  them. 

I  have  written  thus  far  throughout  this  volume  purely  as  an  his- 
torian. I  cannot  close  it  without  adding  a  personal  tribute  as  a 
personal  friend. 

For  my  debt  to  Mr.  Beecher  is  greater  than  to  any  other  man, 
living  or  dead,  except  only  my  father.  Like  many  a  son  of  New 
England,  I  began  my  Christian  life  with  faith  in  a  God  who  is 
inexorable,  and  submission  to  the  primacy  of  a  conscience  which  is 
absolute  but  not  infallible.  From  Mr.  Beecher  I  first  learned  that 
God  is  love,  that  law  is  redemptive,  and  that  love  not  conscience 
is  the  soul's  primate.  Who  that  has  learned  this  lesson  from  any 
teacher  can  ever  forget  the  lesson,  or  look  with  other  than  a  rever- 
ent affection  on  the  teacher  from  whom  he  learned  it  ?  Mr. 
Beecher  has  rendered  his  generation  many  and  great  services — 
political,  moral,  social,  theological  ;  but  his  greatest  service  is  in 
this,  that  he  has  taught  the  Puritan  Church  that  God  is  love,  and 
law  is  love,  and  life  is  love — that  love  is  all  and  in  all. 

He  was  a  great  preacher,  that  we  all  know  ;  the  greatest 
preacher  certainly  of  his  age,  if  not  of  Church  history.  He  was  a 
great  preacher  because  he  was  a  great  and  good  man  ;  that  all 
know  who  knew  him.  He  was  pure  as  a  pure  woman  ;  simple  as 
a  little  child  ;  frank  to  a  fault.  His  most  intimate  friends  never 
heard  from  his  lips  a  suggestion  of  a  salacious  jest  ;  I  never  knew 
the  man  bold  enough  to  venture  on  one  in  his  presence.  He  was 
incapable  of  deceit  or  artifice.  He  could  conceal,  when  conceal- 
ment was  necessary,  only  by  maintaining  an  absolutely  impenetra- 
ble reserve.  The  charges  of  duplicity  and  falsehood  which  a  foul 
conspiracy  brought  against  him  some  years  ago  were  to  all  who 
knew  him  as  intellectually  absurd  as  they  were  morally  monstrous. 
He  had  not  the  necessary  capacity  to  act  a  part.  He  was  always 
more  than  his  sermons  ;  his  life  was  more  eloquent  than  his 
speech.  He  was,  indeed,  most  eloquent  when  he  most  failed  to 
say  what  he  wished  to  say  ;  when  he  struggled  to  give  utterance 
to  the  experiences  which  were  unutterable,  to  afford  to   others  a 


C5-i  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

glimpse  of  the  visions  which  had  been  revealed  to  himself.  He 
was  not  logical  ;  the  seer  never  is.  He  was  a  revelator.  What 
he  had  seen  in  the  closet  he  disclosed  in  the  pulpit.  His  power 
"lay  not  in  his  physical  dignity,  his  skilful,  but  inartificial  elocution, 
his  often  maiTed  but  often  matchless  use  of  language,  his  com- 
mingled sublimity  and  humor,  his  pictorial  imagination,  his  philo- 
sophic perception  of  great  principles  crystallizing  all  details,  his 
broad  human  sympathies,  his  lightning-like  rapidity  of  mental 
action  ;  these  were  all  but  instruments  of  a  power  greater  than 
either,  greater  than  all  combined — the  power  of  a  great  and  a 
godly  personality,  a  noble  and  a  divinely  irradiated  spirit.  For 
no  one  who  knew  Mr.  Beecher  intimately  could  doubt  that  he  was 
pre-eminently  a  man  of  God  and  walked  with  God.  These  are 
phrases  that  are  so  contaminated  with  cant  that  the  pen  shrinks 
from  writing  them.  But  they  are  phrases  full  of  a  divine  mean- 
ing. It  is  possible  to  walk  with  God  ;  to  have  a  fellowship  with 
God,  and  with  His  Son  Jesus  Christ  ;  to  be  a  tabernacle  for  God's 
indwelling.  No  one  who  knew  Mr.  Beecher  intimately,  in  all 
varieties  of  experience,  from  hours  of  the  lightest  merriment  to 
experiences  of  the  deepest  sorrow,  could  ever  question  the  sublime 
reality  of  the  experience  of  walking  with  God. 
■^  Great  natures  have  great  faults.  But  Mr.  Beecher's  were  only 
faults — flaws  on  the  surface,  not  vices  that  corrupted  the  heart.  His 
heart  was  always  true,  pure,  faithful.  The  soul's  true  nature  is  seen 
in  great  crises,  such  as  arouse  all  its  powers  whether  for  good  or 
evil,  and  enkindle  all  its  motives  whether  generous  or  base.  Then 
the  faults  which  have  sprung  from  carelessness,  and  the  simulated 
virtues  which  good-nature  and  approbativeness  have  for  the  hour 
assumed,  are  flung  off,  and  the  real  man  appears.  In  all  great 
crises  Mr.  Beecher  appeared  a  man  ;  true  to  himself,  to  his  con- 
victions, to  God,  and  to  his  fellow-men.  It  was  this  loyalty  of 
his  to  God  and  God's  truth  that  made  those  that  knew  him  so 
loyal  to  him.  In  him  they  saw  more  than  Mr.  Beecher  ;  they 
saw  God  and  God's  truth  manifested,  and  to  these  were  loyal. 
Even  when  they  thought  his  judgment  had  played  him  false  they 
believed  his  loyalty  was  true.  Independent  himself,  he  taught 
his  pupils  independence.  They  never  followed  him  so  closely  as 
when  they  refused  to  follow  him  at  all  ;  love  never  bound  them 
and  him   together   with  bonds  more  indissoluble  than  when  they 


CLOSING   YEARS.  655 

radically  differed.      The  controversies  of  loving   and   loyal  hearts 
do  but  weld  them  more  closely  together. 

God's  best  gift  to  Ilis  children  is  a  great  and  good  man  ;  for 
in  every  great  and  good  man  faith  sees,  though  in  a  glass,  darkly, 
the  great  and  good  God.  God  be  thanked  for  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  !  Death  cannot  wholly  take  him  from  those  that  loved 
him.  Time,  silence,  criticism,  arc  all  alike  powerless  to  take  from 
human  minds  the  truths  which  he  has  taught  them,  or  from  human 
hearts  the  impulses  with  which  he  has  inspired  them.  Dead,  he 
still  lives  ;  the  alabaster  box  is  broken,  but  the  fragrance  fills  a 
continent.  "^ 


MR.    BEECHER'S   PRIVATE,    AS   RELATED   TO   HIS 
PUBLIC   LIFE. 

BY    R.     "W.     RAYMOND. 
[Reprinted  from  Tlie  Christian  Union.] 

It  would  be  difficult  to  give  a  description  of  Mr,  Beecher  in 
private  life,  as  distinct  from  his  public  duties,  and  particularly  his 
life-work  of  preaching  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  And  the  reasons  for 
this  difficulty  are  peculiar — 1  might,  perhaps,  say  unique.  Cer- 
tain! v,  I  never  met  another  man  who  was  so  entirely  tlie  same  in 
public  and  in  private.  He  made  no  attempt  to  separate  the  two 
spheres,  but  in  both  revealed  himself  with  an  absolute  simplicity, 
and  without  reserve.  It  is  probable  that  every  statement  made 
by  him  in  the  most  intimate  confidence,  concerning  his  own  feel- 
ings, could  be  matched  by  a  passage  containing  the  same  revela- 
tion, poured  out  freely  before  thousands  of  hearers.  His  letters 
were  not  more  guarded  than  his  speech.  He  used  the  pen  as  a 
substitute  for  the  tongue,  sometimes  not  addressing,  at  other  times 
not  signing,  what  he  wrote.  And  in  the  expression  of  his  thoughts 
and  feelings,  he  took  no  heed  of  form.  The  felicity  and  com- 
pleteness of  his  illustrations  were  due  to  their  spontaneity.  They 
were  not  elaborated  artificially,  but  seen  clearly,  and  flashed  upon 
the  listener  with  equal  clearness. 

I  remember  that  on  one  occasion  he  concluded  a  public  address 
with  a  magnificent  outburst,  in  which  he  represented  himself  as 


656  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

seeing  Liberty  in  a  vision.  (No  doubt  it  was  the  fresh  and  un- 
conscious reproduction  on  his  part  of  a  famous  passage  of  Milton 
— he  was  a  great  lover  of  Milton's  prose,  the  influence  of  which, 
in  his  oratory,  I  have  often  fancied  I  could  detect.  But  the  de- 
tails of  this  vision  were  wholly  new.)  After  the  return  home, 
some  one  said  to  him,  "  Mr.  Beecher,  you  must  have  meant  a 
diamond-tipped  or  diamond-set  sceptre,  when  you  said  Liberty 
had  '  a  diamond  sceptre.'  "  "  No  ;  it  was  a  diamond  sceptre," 
was  the  reply.  *'  But,  Mr.  Beecher,"  pursued  the  domestic 
critic,  "  it  couldn't  be,  you  know.  There  are  no  diamonds  big 
enough."  "  I  tell  you,"  replied  Mr.  Beecher,  earnestly,  "  it  was 
all  one  diamond  !     Don't  I  know  ?     I  saio  it  myself!''^ 

Many  rhetorical  faults  have  moral  causes,  and  among  them  the 
fault  known  as  "  mixing  figures,"  is  usually  due  to  a  kind  of  lit- 
erary insincerity.  A  man  uses  a  figurative  phrase  when  he  is  not 
thinking  figuratively  at  all  ;  and  hence  no  instinct  prevents  him 
from  employing  at  once  another  phase  inconsistent  with  the  first. 
Mr.  Beecher's  similes  and  strophes  were  singularly  consistent  and 
complete,  because  they  were  sincere.  They  were  pictorial  expres- 
sions of  pictures  really  perceived. 

I  might  follow  this  analysis  into  other  features  of  his  style  as  a 
preacher,  but  such  is  not  my  present  purpose.  It  is  sufficient  to 
mention  one  further  illustration,  namely,  the  effect  of  his  sincerity 
upon  his  delivery.  A  great  critic  once  said  to  me  that  he  knew  of 
no  other  public  speaker  besides  Mr.  Beecher  who  was  absolutely 
free  from  conventionalities  of  time  and  manner.  His  public  and 
his  private  tones  were  exactly  alike.  He  was  simply  himself, 
everywhere  and  under  all  circumstances.  That  pulpit  "  staginess" 
— worse  than  the  staginess  of  the  stage — which  consists  in  artificial 
and  unnatural  intonation,  or  in  the  adoption  of  the  manner  of 
emotion  without  the  emotion,  was- unknown  to  him.  When  he 
varied  his  manner  it  was  because  his  mood  had  changed.  In 
prayer  and  in  the  reading  of  Scripture  and  of  hymns  respectively, 
his  expression  was  exquisitely  appropriate,  not  because  he  had 
studied  the  fitness  of  things,  but  because  his  spirit  was  perfectly 
attuned  to  the  exercise.  Not  a  word  left  his  lips  except  as  an 
arrow  from  the  bow  of  true  feeling. 

It  is  often  said  by  those  who  fancy  themselves  critics,  that  he 
was  a  great  actor.      In  the  most  important  sense,  this  is  not  only 


CLOSING   YEARS.  G57 

not  true,  it  is  the  exact  opposite  of  the  truth.  He  could  not  dis- 
semble. He  could  not  give  force  of  expression  to  a  feeling  which 
was  not  with  equal  force  dominant  for  the  time  within  him. 
Tliat,  partly  by  natural  gift  and  partly  by  training,  he  had  ac- 
quired mastery  of  the  means  of  expression,  is  true  enough  ;  but 
the  sources  of  his  povver  in  their  use  were  these  two  :  perfect 
transparent  sincerity  and  perfect  freedom  from  the  trammels  of 
mannerism.  He  was  thoroughly  natural,  which  is  a  much  rarer 
thing  than  to  be,  as  superficial  observers  have  called  him,  dramati- 
cally artistic. 

But  Mr.  Beecher  was  not  only  sincere,  he  was  devoted.  He 
carried  constantly  with  him  the  sense  of  his  public  duties,  and 
subordinated  to  this  feeling  all  other  considerations.  No  one  who 
ever  sat  near  him  when  he  was  preaching  could  fail  to  notice  what 
prodigious  expenditure  of  force  went  with  his  words.  No  one 
who  ever  heard  him  officiate  at  a  funeral  but  was  impressed  with 
tlie  depth  of  his  sympathy.  These  things  exhausted  him  ;  yet 
they  were  continually  recurring  duties — the  controlling  duties  of 
his  life.  Ministers  often  harden  themselves  in  self-defence,  or 
else  they  are  worn  out  by  the  sympathetic  action  of  their  emotions. 
Mr.  Beecher  planned  his  whole  life  to  avoid  these  two  extremes. 
He  thoroughly  studied  his  own  body  and  his  own  soul  ;  and  he 
did,  without  regard  to  the  rules  of  others,  just  what  experience 
liad  shown  him  to  be  best  calculated  to  preserve  his  powers.  As 
I  have  elsewhere  explained,  he  had  three  distinct  mental  states — 
the  passive  or  resting,  the  receptive  and  inquiring  or  filling  up, 
and  the  spontaneously  active  or  giving  forth  state  ;  and  it  was  his 
constant  effort,  by  observing  certain  laws  of  body  and  mind,  to 
command  these  conditions  at  their  appropiiate  times.  In  the  rest- 
ing stage,  he  loved  to  be  alone  with  birds  or  flowers,  or  precious 
stones  or  pictures — things  that  asked  no  questions,  and  called  for 
no  active  reciprocities.  He  loved,  also,  at  such  times  the  company 
of  little  children,  or  of  friends  who  knew  enough  to  let  him  alone. 
He  liked  to  have  talk  go  on  around  him,  without  special  reference 
to  him  ;  or  if,  less  weary,  he  was  not  averse  to  take  part,  then  the 
conversation  must  be  light,  merry  chat,  and  nobody  must  begin 
to  utilize  it  by  trying  to  "  draw  him  out."  If  these  conditions 
were  not  observed,  he  would  often  take  his  hat  suddenly  and  de- 
part, without  giving  reason  or  bidding  farewell.  Silence  and  sleep 
40. 


CoS  HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 

were  the  restorers  of  liis  strength.  To  rouse  him  from  either, 
was  to  obtain,  perhaps,  a  temporary  exhibition  of  power,  but  at 
the  cost  of  a  later  loss. 

But  these  resting-spells,  which  usually  preceded  and  followed 
his  public  efforts,  were  but  brief,  compared  with  the  inquisitive, 
acquisitive,  observant  and  studious  state  in  which  he  characteris- 
tically lived.  His  eager  mind  laid  hold  of  everything,  absorbed 
and  digested  everything,  until  it  became  part  of  him.  He  had 
no  "  verbal  memory  ;"  he  quoted  nothing  ;  he  made  no  notes  of 
happy  anecdotes  or  illustrations  to  be  subsequently  used  ;  when 
he  wanted  them,  they  came  to  him.  As  is  well  known,  he  was  a 
constant  reader — and  in  widely  various  realms  of  literature.  Some 
books  he  read  because  they  refreshed  him  ;  some,  because  they 
stimulated  him  ;  some,  because  they  produced  certain  desired 
moods  in  his  mind  ;  some,  because  they  instructed  him.  These 
last  he  studied  ;  and  his  method  of  study  was  slow  and  laborious. 
He  read  every  word,  marking  often  the  passages  to  which  he 
would  afterward  return,  and  musing  as  he  read.  I  have  lent  him 
many  books,  and  borrowed  many  from  him,  and  the  proofs  of  his 
thorough  study  have  often  met  my  eyes.  That  he  received  com- 
paratively little  credit  for  this  characteristic,  is  due  to  his  inability 
to  quote.  But  many  a  writer  whose  abundant  quotations  argue 
great  learning  knows  much  less  about  the  books  he  cites  than  did 
this  patient  and  thoughtful  reader.  Upon  his  active  inquiries 
among  men  in  their  daily  occupations,  I  will  not  dwell,  because 
this  side  of  him  is  more  generally  familiar.  The  pilots  on  the 
East  River,  the  lapidaries,  mechanics,  gardeners  and  artists  of 
many  cities  have  borne  witness  to  it  abundantly. 

Concerning  the  productive  or  outgiving  state  of  his  mind,  much 
might  be  said  from  long  observation.  His  purpose  was  that  it 
should  come  upon  him  when  he  needed  it  for  public  use  ;  and  by 
rigid  self-denial  and  insistence  upon  his  simple  rules  of  life,  he 
usually  succeeded.  It  was  all-important  that  intellectual  rest 
should  precede.  This  was  the  reason  he  refused  on  his  lecturing 
tours  to  stop  at  private  houses  and  meet  distinguished  people  who 
had  been  specially  invited  for  the  purpose.  It  was  also  the  reason 
of  his  avoidance  of  many  social  pleasures  (notably  the  Philhar- 
monic concerts,  after  they  were  set  for  Saturday  nights),  and  of 
manv  pastoral  duties,  such  as  the  visiting  of  sick  persons — a  thing 


CLOSING   YEARS.  659 

which  he  seldom  did,  even  for  his  most  intimate  friends,  because 
he  could  not  bear  the  untimely  strain  upon  his  sympathies  which 
it  involved.  As  a  minor,  but  still  important,  form  of  self-denial, 
I  may  mention  his  abstemiousness  in  eating.  This  was  particu- 
larly shown  on  Sundays,  when  he  would  abstain  from  meat  before 
preaching  ;  but  it  was  not  confined  to  that  day.  Before  a  prayer- 
meeting  as  well  as  before  a  sermon,  he  would  carefully  avoid  any 
hearty  eating. 

In  spite  of  all  precautions,  the  outgiving  mood  would  some- 
times seize  him  when  there  was  no  audience,  and  he  would 
squander  eloquence,  humor  and  exalted  emotion  upon  whatever 
company  he  might  be  in.  I  have  heard,  at  such  times,  from  his 
lips,  utterances  as  grand  and  moving  as  any  which  he  pronounced 
in  public. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  happened  to  him,  as  to  other  ministers, 
that  he  had  to  preach  or  make  speeches  when  he  was  not  in  the 
spirit  for  it.  And  he  was  the  only  man  I  ever  knew  who  would 
look  back  upon  a  relative  failure  of  this  kind  with  perfect  equa- 
nimity, and  without  any  special  sense  of  responsibility  for  it.  Jle 
was  accustomed  to  say  that  he  could  tell  beforehand,  by  the  feel- 
ing of  "  the  blood  pumping  up  and  down  in  him,"  when  he  was 
going  to  speak  with  power.  In  later  years,  particularly,  he  did 
best  (I  do  not  now  refer  to  his  preaching)  when  stimulated  and 
*'  set  going"  by  some — but  not  too  much — speaking  from  others. 

I  remember  that  at  one  of  his  last  public  appearances — the  din- 
ner of  the  Polytechnic  Alumni  in  Brooklyn,  on  the  28th  of  Jan- 
uary— he  whis[)ered  to  me  as  I  paused  behind  his  chair,  "  I  can't 
say  anything  to-night  ;  I  am  perfectly  empty."  "  Never  mind," 
I  replied  ;  "  the  boys  are  glad  to  see  you.  Thank  them  for  their 
greeting,  anyhow,  and  sit  down  again,  if  you  like."  But  by  the 
time  he  was  called  upon,  after  several  had  spoken,  he  had  found 
enough  to  say  ;  and  the  mingled  humor  and  eloquence  of  his  ad- 
dress that  night  will  not  soon  be  forgotten.  Ilis  closing  appeal 
to  young  men  to  take  a  manly  stand  upon  the  questions  of  the 
day,  and  his  vigorous  denunciation  of  the  tyranny  of  secret  soci- 
eties pretending  to  represent  the  rights  of  labor,  were  widely 
quoted  throughout  the  country. 

A  singular  feature  of  his  productive  power  was  that  it  seldom 
lasted  more  than  a  couple  of  hours.     At  the   end   of  that  period, 


660  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

it  usually  failed  him,  and  could  only  be  restored  by  rest.  I  dis- 
covered this  peculiarity  in  the  course  of  certain  literary  labor  in 
which  I  was  assisting  him,  and  I  believe  it  was  the  result  of  the 
habit,  through  so  many  years,  of  intellectual  effort  in  preaching. 
His  mind  ran  on  at  high  pressure  about  long  enough  for  the  pro- 
duction of  a  sermon.  Then  it  shut  up.  I  have  known  him,  in 
the  active  mood,  to  remember  with  perfect  distinctness  the  details 
of  a  long  past  occurrence,  which  he  said  came  before  him  as  if  he 
saw  and  heard  the  whole  of  it.  Yet  a  little  later,  when  it  was 
desirable  to  get  from  him  additional  particulars,  he  could  not  re- 
call even  those  he  had  given  ;  and  later  still,  by  waiting  for  the 
favorable  condition  in  him,  and  touching  again  the  appropriate 
association,  the  lost  clew  was  recovered,  and  the  picture  was  re- 
discovered, unf'hanged  in  its  fidelity  and  vividness. 

The  absurdity  of  comparing  such  an  activity  and  wealth  of  pro- 
ductiveness as  his  with  the  studied  and  rare  efforts  of  other  orators 
— men  who  polished  and  repolished  their  work  and  waited  for  the 
favorable  moment  to  bring  it  forth — ought  to  be  evident.  And  it 
is  one  of  the  marks  of  the  lack  of  real  critical  insight  in  our  day, 
that  so  many  shallow  wiseacres  are  indulging,  with  knowing  air 
and  balanced  phrase,  in  criticism  of  Mr.  Beecher's  work  and 
powers,  without  so  much  as  a  standard  of  measurement  for  either. 
They  are  gravely  telling  us  that  he  was  not  this,  that  or  the  other, 
which  he  never  tried  to  be,  and  they  do  not  comprehend,  either 
in  quantity  or  quality,  what  he  was.  They  would  measure  a 
mighty  river,  and  they  have  brought  not  even  a  pint  cup — only  a 
yard-stick.     Let  them  pass.     They  have  ears — but  not  to  hear. 


APPEI^DIX. 


THE  SCOPE    OF  ME.   BEECHER'S  PREACHING. 

The  following  list  of  Mr.  Beeclier's  texts  and  themes  for  two  years  in- 
dicate one  element  of  his  pulpit  power,  namely,  his  variety,  and  inter- 
pret and  partly  illustrate  his  advice  to  the  Yale  Theological  students-. 
Never  preach  two  sermons  alike  if  you  can  help  it. 

1.  Thoughts  of  Death.— John  9  :  4. 

2.  Peaceable  Living. — Eom.  12  :  18. 

3.  The  Law  of  Liberty.— Gal.  5  :  1,  18. 

4.  What  is  the  Profit  of  Godliness.— 1  Tim.  4  :18. 

5.  The  Religious  Uses  of  Music. — Eph.  5  :  19. 

6.  The  Past  and  the  Future.— Phil.  3  :  12-15. 

7.  As  to  the  Lord.— Col.  3  :  22,  23,  24. 

8.  Faithfulness  to  Conviction  the  Basis  of  Right  Action. — Rom.  14  :  5. 

9.  Earning  a  Livelihood.  — Ej)h.  4  :  28. 

10.  Soul  Sight. -John  20  :  29.  [14  :  6. 

11.  Moral    Honesty  and  Moral   Earnestness.  - -Luke  14:  26,    27;   John 

12.  The  Uses  of  Ideals.— 1  Cor.  1  :  28-31. 

13.  Exterior  and  Interior  Divine  Providence. — Phil.  2  :  13. 

14.  Motives  of  Action.— 1  Cor.  10  :  31. 

15.  True  Christian  Toleration.— Acts  21  :  17-26. 

16.  The  Nature  and  Power  of  Humility.— Phil.  3  :  1. 

17.  The  Altars  of  Childhood  Rebuilt.— 1  Kings  18  :  17, 

18.  Through  Fear  to  Love. — 1  John  4  :  18. 

19.  Immortality.— 1  Cor.  15  :  19. 

20.  Possibilities  of  the  Future. — 1  John  3  :  2. 

21.  Children.— Matt.  18  :  10. 

22.  The  Sense  of  an  Ever-present  God.— Heb.  11  :  27. 

23.  The  Nature  and  Sources  of  Temptation. — James  1  :  13,  14. 

24.  The  Temporal  Advantages  of  Religion. — 1  Tim.  4  :  8. 
.  25.  The  Mercifulness  of  the  Bible.— Ps.  119  :  64. 

26.  This  Life  Completed  in  the  Life  that  is  to  Come. — Heb.  13  :  14. 

27.  The  Nature,  Importance  and  Liberties  of  Belief.— John  9  :  35-38. 

28.  Healing  Virtue  in  Christ.-  Mark  5  :  24-34. 

29.  The  Christian  Use  of  the  Tongue.— Col.  3  :  17. 

30.  Heroism.— Mark  12  :  41-44  and  14  :  3-9. 

31.  The  Atoning  God.— Heb.  4  :  14-16. 

32.  The  New  Testament  Theory  of  Evolution.—!  John  3  :  2,  3. 

33.  Fact  and  Fancy.— 2  Cor.  4  :  18. 

34.  All-sidedness  in  Christian  Life.— Eph.  6  :  13. 

35.  Prayer.— 1  Tim.  2  :  1,  2. 

36.  Cuba  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Nations.  -Gal.  3  :  28. 

37.  Working  and  Waiting.— Eph.  6  :  13. 

38.  The  Moral  Teaching  of  Suffering.- Rom.  5  :  6-8. 

39.  The  Nature  of  Christ.— Heb.  2  :  17,  18,  and  Heb.  4  :  16. 

40.  The  Science  of  Right  Living.— Eph.  4  :  31,  32. 

41.  Religious  Constancy. — Heb.  6  :  3,  4. 

42.  The  Riches  of  God.— Eph.  2  :  4-7. 

43.  Soul  Power.— 1  Cor.  12  :  3. 

44.  St.  Paul's  Creed.— Phil.  4  :  18. 

45.  The  Departed  Christ.— John  16  :  7. 

46.  The  Naturalness  of  Faith.— 2  Cor.  5  :  7. 

47.  Spiritual  Manhood.— 2  Cor.  12  :  10. 

48.  Special  Providence.— Matt.  6  :  30. 

49.  Keeping  the  Faith.— Heb.  3  :  6,  14, and  Heb.  10  :  35,  36. 

50.  Charles  Sumner.— Isa.   1  :  26. 

51.  Saved  by  Hope.— Rom.  8  :  24,  25. 

52.  Following  Christ.— Matt.  4  :  17-22. 

53.  The  Primacy  of  Love.— 1  Cor.  1  :  18-24. 


664  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

54.  Summer  in  the  Soul. — Luke  17  :  21. 

55.  Hindering  Christianity.— Gal.  5  :  22-26. 

56.  Soul-Relationship.— Gal.  3  :  26-29,  and  Eph.  11  :  19-22. 

57.  Christian  Joyfulness. — Rom.  12  :  12. 

58.  The  Secret  of  the  Cross.— 1  Cor.  2  :  1-5. 

59.  God's  Grace.— Eph.  2  :  8. 

60.  The  Problem  of  Life.— 1  John  3  :  2,  3,  and  Rom.  8  :  18-21. 

61.  Unjust  Judgments.— Matt.  7  :  1. 

62.  The  Immortality  of  Good  Work.— Rev.  14  :  13. 

63.  The  Delight  of  Self-Sacrifice.— Matt.  20  :  28,  and  Phil.  2  :  1-11. 

64.  Truth-Speaking.— Eph.  4  :  25. 

65.  Saved  by  Grace.— Eph.  2  :  8. 

66.  The  World's  Growth.— 1  Cor.  4  :  20. 

67.  Foundation  Work.— Rom.  15  :  20. 

68.  Triie  Righteoiisness.  — Phil.  3  :  9. 

69.  The  Work  of  Patience.— James  1  :  3,  4. 

70.  Wastefulness.— Seeming  and  Real  —Matt.  26  :  8. 
-  71.  The  Old  Paths.— Jer.  6  :  16,  and  Jer.  18  :  15. 

72.  Christian  Contentment.— Phil.  4  :  11-13. 

73.  Moral  Standards.— Rom.  13  :  8-10,  and  Gal.  5  :  14. 

74.  Extent  of  the  Divine  Law. — Rom.  8  :  10. 

75.  Christ's  Life.— Col.  1  :  27, 

76.  Soul  Growth.— Isaiah  41  :  31. 

77.  Meekness  a  Power.— Matt.  5:5. 

78.  Christianity  Social.— 2  Cor.  4  :  14. 

79.  Grieving  the  Spirit.  — Eph.  4  :  30. 

80.  Sources  and  Uses  of  Suffering.- 2  Cor.  1  :  3-5. 

81.  God's  Dear  Children.— Eph.  1  :  2. 

82.  Nurture  of  Noble  Impulse.— Matt.  21  :  28-31. 

83.  The  Sure  Foundation.— 2  Tim.  2  :  19. 

84.  Soul  Statistics.— 2  Pet.  3  :  18. 

85.  Sowing  and  Reaping. — Rom.  2  :  6-11. 

86.  The  Christian  Life  and  Struggles.— Heb.  12  :  2,  3.   " 

87.  Tlie  B;ble.~2  Tim.  3  :  14-17. 

The  manuscript  or  skeleton  of  the  sermon  on  the  Bible  con- 
tained eighty-seven  words.  The  printed  sermon  contained  nearly 
eight  thousand  words. 

88.  The  Heroism  of  Suffering.— 2  Cor.  1  :  3,  4. 

89.  The  Uses  of  the  Sabbath.— Mark  2  :  37. 

90.  Wait  on  the  Lord.- Heb.  10  :  36. 

91.  The  Mission  of  Christ.— Luke  4  :  16. 

92.  Christlikeness.— 2Cor.  13  :  5. 

93.  The  Law  of  Love.— Matt.  22  :  36-40. 

94.  A  Good  Name.— Eccl.  7  :  1. 

95.  Sabbath  Observance.— Mark  2  :  27. 

96.  The  Conscious  Presence  of  God.'^Heb.  11  :  27. 

97.  The  Divine  Method  in  the  World.— Luke  2  :  41. 

98.  Religious  Doubt.— Matt.  15  :  8,  9. 

99.  The  Fruits  of  the  Spirit.— Gal.  5  :  22,  23. 

100.  The  Divinity  of  Christ.— Luke  19  :  14,  and  Luke  24  :  51,  52. 

101.  The  Parable  of  the  Judgment  —Matt.  25  :  31-46. 

102.  The  Spirit  of  Christian  Missions.— Matt.  28  :  18-20. 

103.  Christian  Consecration  —Luke  14  :  25-26. 

104.  Man's  Need  and  God's  Help.— Acts  13  :  46. 

105.  Awake  Thou  that  Sleepest. — Eph.  4  :  14. 

106.  Spiritual  Decadence. — 2  Cor.  4  :  18. 

107.  The  Waste  of  Moral  Force.— Rom.  15  :  7-14. 

108.  Sentiment  in  Religion. — Luke  24  :  14. 

109.  The  Church  of  Christ.— Matt.  10  :  32,  33. 


Date  Due 


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